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CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS 



A COLLECTION 



BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL AND OTHER SKETCHES 

RELATING TO THE EARLY HISTORY OF 

CAMBRIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 



JAMES M. SWANK, 



SECEETARY AND GENERAL MANAGER OF THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL ASSOCIATION 

FOR 38 YEARS, FROM 1872 TO 1910. AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE MANUFACTURE 

OF IRON IN ALL AGES AND OF OTHER HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS. 



Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not.— Proverbs xxvii. 10. 
Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths.— Jeremiah vi. 16. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

No. 261 SOUTH FOURTH STREET, 
1910. 






Printed by 
ALLEN, LANE & SCOTT, 

Nos. 1211-1213 Clover Street, 
Pbiladelpbia, 



"7 



/7 /^ 



^ 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface 7 

The Founding of The Johnstown Tribune 9 

Peter Goughnour's Reminiscences-. 19 

Revelations of an Old Ledger. ... .-t-.^.0. .^. . f. . >G. f. .■T'T/. .) 23 



Rev. Shadrach Howell Terry 29 

Recollections of Early Johnstown 40 

Edwin Augustus Vickroy 46 

John Rover, Huguenot 53 

Major John Linton 57 

The Building of the Cambria Iron Works 65 

Hon. Daniel Johnson Morrell 71 

Major George Nelson Smith 77 

Dr. William Anthony Smith 85 

Judge James Potts 90 

Judge Cyrus L. Pershing 99 

Colonel Jacob M. Campbell 108 

Alexander Chesterfield Mullin 114 

Samuel Bell McCormick 124 

A Reminiscence of President Zachary Taylor 129 

John Fritz, Ironmaster 131 

A Lesson from the Johnstown Flood 135 




PREFACE. 



At the outset I wish my friends who read this volume to under- 
stand plainly that it is not the result of a deliberate purpose to write 
a book of more or less historical value. It is a compilation entirely, 
with two exceptions, of twenty biographical and other sketches relating 
to Cambria county that were written years ago, some of them many 
years ago. It has fallen to my lot to prepare from time to time and 
publish biographical sketches of some of the prominent men of Cambria 
county in the old days, a few of whom were then living but most of 
whom had passed to the other side, and these sketches, now repro- 
duced, occupy the larger part of the following pages ; the remainder of 
the volume is devoted to subjects of historical interest relating to pio- 
neer days in Cambria county which I have had occasion to consider in 
years gone by. The names and the work of the pioneers of any com- 
munity should never be forgotten. Of the biographical sketches three 
relate to old and prominent citizens of Cambria county who have died 
in Philadelphia and with whom my old acquaintance had been renewed. 

I have compiled these sketches not only to preserve the memory of 
prominent and worthy citizens of Cambria county who have had much 
to do with its early history but also to preserve many historical facts 
of local interest which otherwise might be wholly lost, some of which are 
interwoven with those of a purely personal character. That Johnstown 
was a shipping point of importance on the Conemaugh long before the 
Pennsylvania Canal or the Pennsylvania Railroad was ever dreamed of; 
that there were many iron enterprises at and near Johnstown before the 
Cambria Iron Works were built ; that an Ebensburg man was the pri- 
vate secretary of Governor Curtin during the civil war ; that the editor 
of a Johnstown newspaper was in the battle of San Jacinto in 1836 ; that 
more than sixty years ago there was a volunteer military company at 
Summerhill called the Quitman Guards ; that a citizen of Johnstown 
was the chairman of the executive committee of the Centennial Com- 
mission, and that other citizens of Johnstown have occupied high offi- 
cial positions ; that there was no post office at Johnstown until 1811 ; 
that there were great floods in Johnstown in the early days — all these 
and many more facts of strictly historical value relating to the early 
days of Cambria county are certainly worthy of preservation. 

The attention of the reader is called to the date of publication of 
each sketch, which will be found immediately under its title. I could 
not rewrite the sketches to adapt them to present conditions. They are 
reprinted substantially as they were originally written. If any errors of 
fact should be discovered I can only plead in explanation that all but one 
of the sketches were written away from my old home in the mountains. 

Philadelphia, December 26, 1910. J- M- S. 



CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE. 



WRITTEN IN SEPTEMBER, 1882, AND PUBLISHED IN THE 
JOHNSTOWN DAILY AND WEEKLY TRIBUNE. 



The main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad from 
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, with its leased connections, was 
completed to the latter city late in 1852. On the 10th of 
December of that year cars were run through from Phila- 
delphia to Pittsburgh for the first time. The construction 
of this great thoroughfare led to the development of exten- 
sive mining and manufacturing enterprises in many parts 
of Pennsylvania, and particularly in the western part. In 
the spring of 1853 the first spadeful of earth was removed 
at Johnstown to prepare for the foundations of the Cam- 
bria Iron Works, and on July 27, 1854, these works went 
into operation. Before they had made their first rail, how- 
ever, or had turned a single wheel, the writer of these lines, 
inspired perhaps by the hope of better days for Johnstown, 
but most likely ruled by a destiny which he did not un- 
derstand, issued on the 7th day of December, 1853, the first 
number of the Cambria Tribune, an enterprise worthy to be 
referred to on the same page, we trust, with the two more 
extensive enterprises already mentioned. We know, at least, 
that it had just as worthy an origin. But it had a very 
humble origin, and, unlike the man who gets up in the 
world and unwisely forgets the days of his poverty and 
dependence, we proj^ose to-day to take the old friends and 
the new friends of the Tribune into our confidence and tell 
them how the little newspaper got its start. 

There had been published in Cambria county since about 
1825, sometimes at Johnstown and sometimes at Ebensburg, 
a Whig newspaper which had in turn many owners and 



10 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

many names. The first copy of this paper which we have 
seen was styled the Cambria Gazette and was printed at Eb- 
ensburg in 1827. Subsequently it was called The Sky and 
afterwards again the Cambria Gazette. While bearing this 
last name the press and fixtures of the office found their 
final resting place in Johnstown. But while they became 
stationary the name of the paper did not have the same 
good fortune, nor did the paper's ill-luck of having fre- 
quent changes of ownership come to an end. Finally, in 
the summer of 1853, one of those episodes in its history 
occurred wdiich had frequently occurred before — the paper 
came to a dead stop. 

It was under such circumstances as these that the press 
and fixtures of the office — subscription list and good will 
were of little value — came into my hands in November, 1853, 
with an understanding wdtli a few prominent Whigs of the 
town, in whose custody I found the press and fixtures, that 
I was to publish a Whig newspaper if I could but that 
they were not to be responsible for my debts if I failed. 
With this encouragement, such as it was, I resolved to go 
ahead. I had not one dollar of capital but I had that 
which is better than capital, I had friends, and from them 
I borrowed about $150. With this money a new dress of 
long primer type was purchased and also a few bundles of 
paper. I found the office in a large room on Main street, 
on the first floor of a frame addition to the Mansion House. 
The room was unsuitable for a printing office, being low in 
height, poorly lighted with eight-by-ten glass, uneven upon 
the floor, and hugging the ground so closely that it was 
necessary to step down from the sidewalk to get into it. 
In the rear was the fragrant stableyard of the Mansion 
House. I recollect very well that the first thing I did on 
assuming possession was to have that office scrubbed and 
whitewashed. My landlord was John Dibert and the rent 
was $30 a year. 

I can not, with equal certainty, recall the names of the 
printers who helped me to issue the first number of the new 
paper. I set some of the type for the first number myself, 
but I will say frankly that I did not set it very fast. My 
impression is that a young man named Hill from Indiana 



THE FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE. 11 

was the journeyman and that Joseph M. Horton and the 
present proprietor of the Tribune were the office boys, Joe 
also being the carrier. They all worked in the office dur- 
ing the first winter of the new paper's existence and I think 
that they worked on the first number. Andrew Jackson 
Hite also worked on the Tribune in its early days. Hite 
and Horton are dead and are buried among strangers. Joe 
Horton " finished his trade " in the Tribune office and be- 
came a rapid and correct compositor. Jack Hite was al- 
ready an accomplished printer, familiar with all the details 
of the typographic art. He had taken his first lessons in 
the art in 1846 from Henry C. Devine, the foreman of the 
Democratic Courier, a journalistic venture of our old friend 
General James Potts, who was assisted in its editorial man- 
agement by Major Thomas A. Maguire. Jack had for a 
fellow-apprentice in the Courier office John P. Linton, but 
John did not remain long at the case. Jack afterwards, 
and prior to the starting of the Tribune, acted for a time 
as the right-hand man of Captain George N. Smith in the 
publication at Johnstown of The Allegheny Mountain Echo. 
When I resolved to try my luck as the editor and pub- 
lisher of a weekly newspaper in Johnstown I would have 
been glad to continue the name by which the old paper 
had longest been known, the Cambria Gazette. It was eupho- 
nious and appropriate, and, although associated with fre- 
quent failures, it had a certain hold upon the affections of 
the old Whigs of the county, who remembered that it had 
rejoiced with them when they were victorious and condoled 
with them when they were defeated. But I was persuaded 
that persistence in the use of the name would be ominous 
of further disaster, and I reluctantly abandoned it and 
substituted the Cambria Tribune. This name I afterwards 
changed, for obvious reasons, to The Johnstoivn Tribune. I 
was at the time the Tribune was started an admirer of Hor- 
ace Greeley, whose paper, the Neio York Tribune, was then, 
as it long had been, the leading Whig newspaper in the 
country. After it the Cambria Tribune was called. I re- 
member well that that ardent and brilliant young Whig, 
Abram Kopelin, protested warmly against my choice of a 
name. He said that Horace Greeley's paper was the organ 



12 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

of the Abolitionists, as well as of the Whigs, and that the 
paper I proposed to start would also be identified in the 
public mind with the same treasonable faction, which would 
never, never do. But I had my way. At that time there 
were few papers in the country whose publishers dared 
to call them after the New York Tribune; now there are 
hundreds of Tribunes. I have always been satisfied with 
my choice. My venerable friend Abraham Morrison did 
not strongly object to it, but hoped that I would call the 
paper The Peoj^le's Advocate. 

Well, we laid the new type for the new paper and I 
gave the boys plenty of copy. Up went the long rows of 
shining metal, brightening my eyes and gladdening my 
heart. And where do you think those rows were ? On 
brass galleys where type is now placed ? There was not one 
in the office. Our sticks were emptied on a long wooden 
galley nailed against the wall near the press. This galley 
would hold three rows of type, each row containing enough 
type to make about three columns of the paper. It re- 
mained in use for several years. When enough type had 
been set for one side of the paper it was carried directly 
from this galley to the bed of the press, a handful at a 
time. Imposing-stone there was none. When the pages 
were locked up, and not until then, a proof was taken with 
the press, slips wide enough to take an impression of two 
columns being used. Corrections were made on the press, 
and the printers who read this can imagine how disheart- 
ening the work would often be, especially when there would 
be " doublets " or " outs," and more especially when the 
corrections would have to be made at night by an imper- 
fect light. 

Imperfect light ! What do you suppose that old Tribune 
office was lighted with ? Tallow candles, two for five cents, 
set in low and narrow candlesticks made of lead to prevent 
them from tilting over. Many a page of the Tribune has 
been corrected with the aid of candles set in these candle- 
sticks. When an accident would happen, and the tallow 
would make the acquaintance of the type in the form, the 
poor printer became an object of real pity. His task in 
making corrections was sufficiently hard before. When 



THE FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE. 13 

•composition liad to be done at night, and it had to be 
pretty often, no other candles or candlesticks than those de- 
scribed were used. The candlestick was placed in the " e " 
box. In those days Johnstown had not been blessed with 
•either gaslight or coal-oil lamps. 

When the form for one side of the paper had been made 
ready, and the press had also been made ready, the hardest 
work in the office commenced. An edition of about five 
hundred copies was to be printed, and it invariably took 
a pressman and a roller-boy the whole of a half day, or 
from early in the evening until midnight, as the case might 
be, to print one side of that edition. The same amount of 
labor was of course required to print the other side. 

What sort of a press did we have ? We had a press, 
reader, which we would gladly put in a glass case if we had 
it now. But the press is lost ; we really do not know what 
became of it. It was a two-pull Ramage press — that is, the 
platen was only large enough to cover one page of our lit- 
tle paper. The bed of the press was run in until the platen 
•covered one page, when the lever was pulled and that page 
was printed ; then the bed was run in farther until the next 
page was covered, when it was printed and the bed was run 
out and the sheet taken off the tympan. It was a hand- 
press, of course. The operation was like that of printing a 
paper on a Washington press, except that two pulls were 
required instead of one. The work of printing even our 
small edition was exceedingly tedious and very laborious. 
The press itself was liable, too, to get out of order, and this 
was an additional drawback. The platen was a smooth- 
faced wooden block which was attached to the frame by 
four hooks and many strands of twine. Occasionally a hole 
would be punched in the face of the platen, the printing 
•of handbills being the most frequent cause of this misfor- 
tune, and then the platen had to be untied from the hooks 
and taken, like a babe in arras, to Thompson R. Kimmell 
■or Napoleon B. Haynes to be planed down until the hole 
would disappear. We remember nervously standing in front 
of these cabinet-makers — we generally called on them turn 
about — and coaxing them to drop all other work until our 
platen was attended to. When they had kindly given it a 



14 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

smooth face once more we carried it in our arms in triumph 
back to the office. The exercise of tying it to the hooks 
then followed. This was a work of no little delicacy, as 
the tying to the four hooks had to be very evenly done or 
else one corner of the platen would be sure to drag and the 
impression of the paper be blurred. The springs which 
returned the lever to its place, and which also helped to 
equalize the impression, were made of small pieces of leather. 

It will be seen that our press was a very primitive affair. 
Benjamin Franklin might have worked with it, for it was 
almost identical in construction, and entirely so in princi- 
ple, with the one on which he printed The Pennsylvania 
Gazette. We managed to do good work with it, except when 
something would get wrong with the twine or the bits of 
leather. Although not on our programme that we should 
do the presswork for the paper we found that we usually 
had it to do, editorial dignity counting for nothing when 
the paper had to come out. 

Joe Horton applied the ink with a glue-and-molasses 
roller. I usually made the rollers myself. I was a fair 
pressman and a slow but sure compositor but a poor roller- 
maker. Theoretically I knew how to make a roller, and I 
always gave the mixture due attention, but often my labor 
came to naught. The composition would frequently refuse 
to harden sufficiently and then the work had to be done 
over again. Many an evening I have stood over the old 
cannon stove and stirred the mixture until I thought it had 
been sufficiently cooked, then poured it into the mould and 
gone home to find in the morning that I had missed it 
again ! I remember, and the present publisher of the Trib- 
une doubtless remembers, a heartbreaking experience in en- 
deavoring to make a roller in a glue-kettle which had little 
pin-holes in it that let in the water from the other kettle. 
After several failures, which Avere attributed first to the mo- 
lasses and next to the glue, almost every grocery in town 
being called upon for the former and every drug store for 
the latter, we finally discovered the cause of the trouble in 
the pin-holes and I bought a new glue-kettle. Then there 
was sunshine again and there was a good roller in the 
Tribune office. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE, 15 

Did we ever pi a form in the old Tribune office ? We 
certainly did. It was this way : We did not have twin 
chases in those days, at least not in the Tribune office, and 
both pages were locked up in one chase. The lifting of so 
heavy a form to the press required the help, if not all the 
strength, of two persons. Late one night the present pub- 
lisher of the Tribune assisted me to place the form on its 
edge on the press and then left it in my hands, trusting 
me to lay it down properly. I was about to do this when 
a slip of some kind took place, the form came down all too 
suddenly, and there was a catastrophe. One page fell out 
of the form and into a good-sized heap but the other page 
was safe. We grieve to say that the present publisher of 
the Tribune deserted us that night in our trouble. He left 
by the front door, with the irreverent remark that we were 
no printer. We stuck to the wreck alone for several hours ; 
we were not sleepy enough to go home. In the morning 
our bad fortune did not look so bad as it did when it hap- 
pened ; time and patience will cure a printer's trouble as 
well as nearly all other troubles. 

The first number of the Tribune made its appearance, 
as I have said, on the 7th day of December, 1853. Other 
numbers followed in regular order. I sent the paper to 
nearly all the householding Whigs in the town and to some 
Democrats. I also sent it to a few prominent persons at 
Ebensburg and at other points. But few farmers around 
Johnstown called to make the acquaintance of the new 
editor or his paper and I could not send it to their homes ; 
many of them in those days did not read English. Such 
farmers, however, as became subscribers for the paper were 
among its most appreciative readers, and no subscribers were 
more punctual in paying the printer. After marking off 
my temporary list the names of those who returned the pa- 
per, with the chilling word " refused " marked on its mar- 
gin, I had about five hundred names left, and it is a sin- 
gular fact that for several years afterwards the number of 
subscribers did not materially increase. The Cambria Iron 
Company failed twice soon after the paper was started and 
many other adverse circumstances operated against its pros- 
perity. The Whig party was dying, the Democrats were in 



16 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

power ill Cambria county, money was scarce, and the times 
were hard. The same influences which operated against an 
increase of my subscription list also operated against the 
receipt of many cash-paying advertisements. Of job work 
there was not much to do, but what was offered was most 
thankfully received. Usually advertising is regarded as the 
life-blood of a country newspaper, but I found in the early 
days of the Tribune that without the job work of the office 
the paper could not have lived. All jobs were printed on 
the Ramage press. 

The Tribune was a four-page paper, six columns to 
the page. It was exactly one-half as large as the present 
weekly edition of the Tribune. It was large enough, how- 
ever, for its day. While not what it ought to have been, 
and might have been under more favorable circumstances, 
it possessed some characteristics of a meritorious nature that 
I will be pardoned for referring to. I was my own editor ; 
the young lawyers and the Whig politicians of the town 
were not called upon, nor w^ould they have been permitted, 
to help me with their superior editorial skill. The paper ap- 
peared regularly on the day of publication, even if we had 
to work half a night or all night to accomplish this object. 
The carrier's visits could always be looked for at about 
the same hour every week. I rarely if ever printed a half 
sheet, and no matter how serious an accident might happen 
in our office no edition of the Tribune was ever printed in 
any other office. I made it a rule that advertisements should 
never appear on the first page of the paper and they never 
did. I had a department for the farmers on the fourth 
page and it was rarely omitted. I had but little taste for 
local news, caring more for general news and general poli- 
tics ; consequently the early volumes of the Tribune con- 
tain only a brief record of the local events of the day and 
absolutely none of the gossip of the town. Country news- 
papers have greatly changed since those days in this par- 
ticular and I insist have changed for the worse. Better, far 
better, a bit of poetry, or a scrap of history or biography, 
or Congressional proceedings than many local items that are 
now published. I think that if I erred seriously as an edi- 
tor in those early days it was in devoting too much space 



THE FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE. 17 

to long selections ; the paper was not sufficiently a reflex 
of the opinions and temper of the times. 

It was hard up-hill work to keep the Tribune alive in 
its early days. As I have said money was scarce, and I 
will add that there was not then one really liberal mer- 
chant advertiser in the town. I had good friends among 
the merchants, but they did not understand the art of ad- 
vertising or have much faith in printer's ink. I had no offi- 
cial patronage of any kind. Many of my farmer subscrib- 
ers, although they paid me promptly, insisted that I must 
take " country produce " in lieu of money, and I had to do 
it. I have taken from them, on account of their subscrip- 
tions, cord-wood, poultry, pumpkins, butter, apples, potatoes, 
bacon, blackberries, and even chestnuts. Most of the mer- 
chants who advertised with me also insisted that I should 
trade out my advertising bills, and I had to do that. 

I was often, as may easily be supposed, entirely out of 
money, yet I never after the paper was started borrowed a 
dollar to keep it going. I made it an inflexible rule that, 
when I needed a certain amount of money, I would collect 
it if possible from those who owed it to me. If I had not 
adopted and adhered to this rule I must have broken down. 
My debts, therefore, were always paid when due, and it was 
of great service to me that I established the reputation of 
being careful in my flnancial dealings. I was sometimes, 
however, most sorely pressed. Upon several occasions when 
I needed paper, and did not know where to look for even 
$10 to buy it with, I have taken advantage of my posses- 
sion of a free pass on the Pennsylvania Railroad and gone 
to Pittsburgh to solicit advertisements. I never failed to se- 
cure something for my advertising columns, and by making 
the price low I could get the cash in advance. With this 
I would go to a paper warehouse and buy a few bundles, 
or maybe only one bundle. If in immediate need of paper 
I have secured the services of a porter to take a bundle to 
the Pennsylvania Railroad depot, where I would get the 
baggage-master on my return train to carry it to Johns- 
town. In the evening, or possibly late at night, I would 
reach home all right. Better that day's work than to bor- 
row money. Let me add that I have frequently, at the end 



18 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

of a visit to Pittsburgh, but of course after night, for my 
pride was not proof against everything, carried a bundle 
of paper on my shoulder from the railroad station to the 
Tribune office and wet down a sufficient number of quires 
for the next edition. 

I need not add to these reminiscenses, which I wish the 
reader to understand refer only to the first two years and a 
half in the life of the Tribune— ivom 1853 to 1856. My 
little enterprise has now grown to be twenty-nine years old, 
and it has grown in magnitude and power with its years. 
I look upon the fat advertising columns of the large daily 
and weekly editions of the paper, and then at the splen- 
did office in which it is printed, as if tbe transformation 
were all a dream. I see advertisements rejected because 
there is no room for them ; the old Tribune had plenty 
of room in its advertising columns. I see paper hauled 
to the office by the wagon-load and I think of my poor 
little bundle. There is a big steam press and there are 
other presses in the place of the old Ramage and its 
wooden platen. There are tons of type. The proprietor is 
not asked to take blackberries and chestnuts in payment 
of subscriptions, for the farmers, thanks to the Cambria 
Iron Works, are now prosperous and have money in their 
pockets. It is all like a dream. But the early days of 
the Tribune, the hard struggle to give it a start, the dis- 
appointments, the heartaches and heartbreaks, the endless 
pinching to make both ends meet, the bitter first lessons in 
human selfishness — all this is a stern reality which I could 
not forget if I would. 

My connection with the Tribune terminated finally on the last day 
of December, 1869. Beginning with the summer of 1856 the paper ex- 
perienced several changes in management, but in 1864 its sole ownership 
and control reverted to my hands, in which they continued until the 
December day above mentioned. My entire connection with the Tribune 
covered a period of about eleven years. 




PETER GOUGHXOUR's REMINISCENCES. 19 



PETER GOUGHNOUR'S REMINISCENCES. 



EDITOKIAL IN THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE OF SATURDAY, 
FEBRUARY 9, 1856. 



Peter Goughnour, who was born in Maryland in 1773 
and died in Conemaugh township, Cambria county, during 
the past year, 1855, left a statement of his early recollec- 
tions of what was in old times called " the Conemaugh 
country," which statement is now before us. It is much 
to be regretted that there is not in existence an authentic 
history of the early settlers and settlements of the Cone- 
maugh country, and with a view to filling a portion of this 
blank in our annals we will compile from Mr. Goughnour's 
statement such facts as we think worthy of preservation. 

Mr. Goughnour says that the first white settlers in the 
Conemaugh country were two brothers, Samuel and Solo- 
mon Adams. At the time of their settlement, about 1785, 
the Indians who hunted and fished on the banks and in 
the waters of the Conemaugh and Stony creek were quite 
numerous. Samuel Adams lived on Sam's run, about two 
miles south of the confluence of these two streams, and 
from him it derived its name. Solomon's cabin was located 
about midway between the junction of the Conemaugh and 
Stony creek and his brother's cabin. Solomon's run took 
its name from him. Samuel Adams and an Indian warrior 
killed each other with their knives while fighting around a 
white-oak tree on Sandy run, about five miles east of the 
junction of the Conemaugh and Stony creek. Their bodies 
were buried in one grave under the tree. 

Mr. Goughnour settled in what is now Conemaugh town- 
ship in 1798. Cambria county was then a wilderness and 
not known to geographers. At the date of Mr. Goughnour's 
settlement the Indians had departed from their Conemaugh 
hunting grounds, but he says that he had found heaps of 
stones erected over Indian graves, flint arrows, elk horns. 



^0 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

and other relics of their presence. A few of these stone 
heaps are still standing on the banks of the Stony creek 
above Johnstown. 

Jacob Stiitzman, who died in 1816, occupied in 1794 
the Conemaugh bottom, now the site of Johnstown, and to 
which had been given the name of Oldtown. Mr. Stutz- 
man was the first white man who ever occupied the bottom. 
A son of his was killed by an ox-team which had been 
scared by a rattlesnake. The body of the boy was buried 
on the left bank of the Stony creek, where Water street in 
Kernville is now located. 

Joseph Johns, or Schantz, a member of the Amish com- 
munion and an industrious and honest man, laid out Cone- 
maugh bottom into town lots in 1800. Those who assisted 
him to lay out the town, and who became its first citizens, 
were Peter Goughnour, Joseph Francis, Ludwig Wissinger, 
and a few others. They named it Conemaugh-town, but it 
was generally called Johnstown. Mr. Johns died at an ad- 
vanced age in Conemaugh township, Somerset county. 

Dr. Anderson and William Hartley opened the first store 
in the new town and Isaac Proctor opened the second. The 
necessaries of life at that time rated very high. Coffee was 
50 cents per pound ; pepper, allspice, and ginger, 50 cents 
per pound ; shad, 50 cents each ; salt, $5 per bushel ; wheat, 
$2 per bushel. All other articles rated accordingly. Wages 
were from 40 to 50 cents per day. 

There were at that time no roads through the wilderness 
to older settlements and nothing but canoes for navigating 
the streams. Domestic animals were rare but wild beasts 
of the forest were quite numerous. Panthers, wolves, bears, 
€tc., prowled at night around the cabins of the pioneers. 
Nevertheless the first settlers, in Mr. Goughnour's language, 
had fine times hunting and fishing, as the forest was alive 
with game and the clear streams were filled with fish. 
Deer were numerous. 

The bottoms in the vicinity of Conemaugh-town were 
•covered with luxuriant verdure and presented a wild and 
picturesque appearance. The hills also were grand beyond 
description, with their glorious old forests in which the 
woodman's axe had never rung. Pea vines, wild sunflowers, 



PETER GOUGHNOUR's REMINISCENCES. 21 

grapevines, and other native representatives of the vegeta- 
ble world twined around and waved between the giant oaks^ 
and spruce, and hickories. What a paradise was that Cone- 
maugh country to its first settlers some fifty years ago ! 

Still those pioneers had their troubles and those forests 
and bottoms had their drawbacks. Growing among the tall 
grass was a noxious weed, resembling garlic in taste and 
appearance, and called ramps by the settlers, which, when 
eaten by the cows, was sure to sicken them and put a stop 
to the supply of milk and butter. The grass, from some 
cause not stated, did not make good hay, and as the culti- 
vation of corn, oats, rye, etc., was exceedingly limited the 
result was that in the winter the cattle often fared badly.. 
The settlers, in order to prevent their cattle from starving, 
were forced to cut down trees so that they could browse 
on the buds and young branches. The women were re- 
quired to clear land and do rough farmwork, such as har- 
rowing, harvesting, hoeing corn, etc. They were also ac- 
customed to other phases of hard pioneer life. 

Large quantities of maple sugar and molasses were in a 
few years manufactured by the settlers of the Conemaugh 
country and packed to neighboring settlements. Venison 
also became an article of traffic. In exchange for these 
commodities the Conemaugh settlers received the necessaries 
which they could not produce themselves. Bedford was 
their principal market. 

In the course of time the population of Conemaugh-town 
increased as well as the number of farms in its vicinity. 
A log inn for the entertainment of travelers was built. A 
road was opened through the wilderness to Frank stown,, 
below Hollidaysburg, upon which bar iron was hauled to 
Conemaugh-town and shipped in the spring of the year in 
flat-bottomed boats to Pittsburgh. Conemaugh-town now 
became a place of some business, and it was found neces- 
sary to build another inn. 

In 1808 the town was overflowed by a sudden rise in 
the Conemaugh and Stony creek and the inhabitants were 
compelled to fly to the hills for safety. The town was- 
again submerged in 1816. This event was termed " the 
punkin flood," owing to the fact that it swept away the- 



22 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS, 

whole pumpkin crop of that year. Much damage was done 
by this flood. Fences were swept away, saw-logs and lum- 
ber disappeared, and many horses and cattle were drowned. 
The settlers suffered severely by this flood. 

About 1812 the town boasted a grist mill and also a 
small iron forge on Stony creek. In 1816 the first keel 
boat was built by Isaac Proctor on the right bank of the 
Stony creek, near where the Union graveyard is located. 
Flatboats were also constructed at the same place. While 
laborers were digging the race for another forge on the 
Conemaugh old fire-brands, pieces of blankets, an earthen 
smoke-pipe, and other Indian relics were discovered at a 
depth of twelve feet below the surface of the earth. 

Notwithstanding the improvements mentioned the town 
was still small when, about 1829, the Commonwealth com- 
menced the construction of the Canal and Portage Railroad. 
Since that time it has steadily prospered and gradually be- 
come a place of some note and business importance. 




REVELATIONS OF AN OLD LEDGER. 23 



REVELATIONS OF AN OLD LEDGER. 



FROM THE BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL 
ASSOCIATION FOR JUNE 1, 1896. 



Johnstown has had three periods of transportation de- 
velopment — the first embracing the flatboat era from about 
1800 to 1830 ; the second beginning with the completion of 
the Pennsylvania Canal to Johnstown in 1830 and extend- 
ing to the completion of the Pennsylvania Railroad to Pitts- 
burgh in 1852 ; and the third beginning with the comple- 
tion of the Pennsylvania Railroad and extending to the 
present time. The iron industry of Johnstown has also 
had three periods of development — the first embracing Cam- 
bria forge at Johnstown and Shade furnace, Shade forge, 
and Mary Ann forge in Somerset county near Johnstown, 
all of which were built between 1808 and 1820 ; the sec- 
ond, a ten-year period, embracing Cambria, Ben's Creek, 
Mill Creek, Mount Vernon, and Somerset furnaces, built 
from 1842 to 1846 — Mount Vernon in Johnstown and the 
other furnaces only a few miles away ; and the third be- 
ginning with the organization of the Cambria Iron Com- 
pany in 1852 and coming down to the present time. 

Johnstown owes its start as an industrial and commer- 
cial centre to the fact that its location at the head of flat- 
boat navigation on the Conemaugh furnished an outlet for 
the iron of the Juniata valley at the beginning of the 
nineteenth century. There was more water in the Cone- 
maugh and its tributaries in those years than there is now, 
Johnstown was an iron town before Pittsburgh had made 
a pound of iron. The following details deal exclusively 
with the period of flatboat transportation and with the first 
period of the iron industry of Johnstown. 

For the facts that we shall present we are in part in- 
debted to an old ledger which has recently come into our 
possession and which escaped the destruction of the Johns- 



24 CAMBKIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

town flood ill 1889. The ledger contains accounts of sales 
made and of credits entered by Isaac Proctor, a merchant 
of Johnstown in the early years of the nineteenth century, 
and a record of other business transactions by Mr. Proctor. 
His store was located on Main street, immediately opposite 
the site of the First Presbyterian church. 

Isaac Proctor was a native of Bedford county, Pennsyl- 
vania. He settled at Johnstown, " at the forks of the Cone- 
maugh," when it was a mere hamlet of log houses, soon 
after 1800, in which year the town was " laid out " by 
Joseph Johns, a Swiss Mennonite, into streets and alleys, 
building lots, public squares, and other reservations. But 
the name that was then officially given to the new town 
was Conemaugh and not Johnstown, the latter name being 
substituted for the former in 1834. We have before us a 
letter dated at Conemaugh on April 27, 1832. Settlements 
had been made at Johnstown before 1800 by German and 
Swiss farmers. For a number of years after 1800 the town 
was almost entirely inhabited by people of German and 
Swiss origin. 

Isaac Proctor was not only a country merchant but he 
was also the owner of a warehouse on the north bank of 
Stony creek, below Franklin street, in Johnstown, which 
was maintained for the express purpose of receiving and 
storing bar iron from the forges of the Juniata valley, 
which bar iron was hauled to Johnstown over the Franks- 
town Road and thence shipped in flatboats to Pittsburgh by 
way of the Conemaugh, Kiskiminitas, and Allegheny rivers. 
There were other warehouses near that of Isaac Proctor 
which were maintained for precisely the same purpose. 
The flatboats were built at Johnstown or at points farther 
up the Stony creek and as far south as the mouth of Ben's 
creek, three miles away. A large business was done far 
into the nineteenth century in the shipment of Juniata iron 
by flatboats from Johnstown. At first and for many years 
these shipments embraced only bar iron, but subsequently 
and down to the opening of the Pennsylvania Canal to 
Johnstown late in 1830 they embraced also blooms and pig 
iron, all made with charcoal. As the navigation of the 
streams mentioned was as yet wholly unimproved ship- 



REVELATIONS OF AN OLD LEDGER. 25 

ments could only be made during high water, and even 
then experienced i)ilots were needed to prevent the boats 
from going to pieces on the rocks and riffles in which the 
Conemaugh river particularly abounded. Occasionally a 
boat was wrecked. In one disaster at Richards' Falls two 
lives were lost. Much of the hauling over the Frankstown 
Road was done on sleds in the winter, and February and 
March, when the spring break-up took place, were favor- 
ite months for sending the flatboats to Pittsburgh, one 
hundred miles away. The boats were sold at Pittsburgh 
and the crews walked home. 

Keel boats were also used on the Conemaugh and Kiski- 
minitas rivers, but they were used chiefly in the salt trade, 
the Conemaugh salt works beginning about forty miles west 
of Johnstown. The first salt works on the Conemaugh date 
from about 1814. In A. J. Hite's Hand Book of Johnstown, 
printed in 1856, it is stated that the first keel boat built at 
Johnstown was built by Isaac Proctor in 1816. Keel boats, 
which passed from the Conemaugh and Iviskiminitas into 
the Allegheny, brought return cargoes from Pittsburgh. 

The merchandise accounts in Mr. Proctor's ledger are 
chiefly for the years 1808 and 1809, occasional entries com- 
ing down as late as 1810, 1811, and 1812. The warehouse 
accounts are for the years 1816, 1817, and 1818. As is usual 
in ledger accounts the prices of merchandise are not often 
given. It is, however, very remarkable that all the mer- 
chandise accounts are kept in pounds, shillings, and pence. 
The pound character {£) is used. Dollars and cents are no- 
where mentioned, although our Federal coiiiage was author- 
ized in 1792 and silver dollars were coined as early as 1794. 
The dollar mark ($) does not appear in any of the mer- 
chandise accounts. That business should have been trans- 
acted in British or colonial currency in an interior town in 
Pennsylvania as late as 1812 is a discovery for which we 
were not prepared. We can not understand why the Brit- 
ish system of computing values was continued in that inte- 
rior town so long, nor is any light thrown upon the value 
of a pound in dollars and cents at Johnstown in 1812, or 
upon the forms of currency that were used when payments 
were made in " cash." John Holliday closed his account 



26 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

with Mr. Proctor in June, 1811, when he is credited with 
a payment of £32 16s. 4d. in " cash ; " in January, 1811, 
Patrick Dempsey closed his account by giving his note for 
X6 10s. 3d. ; in 1812 William Fulford closed his account 
by giving his note for X2 6s. Id. ; and in the same year 
John Grosenickle closed his account by giving his note for 
XI Is. 2d. In 1808 John Grosenickle is credited with XI 
lis. 9d. for hauling a load of maple sugar to Bedford. 
There are other entries in the same denominations. 

Another revelation of this old ledger is just as remark- 
able as the use of pounds, shillings, and pence until 1812. 
The warehouse accounts of bar iron received and shipped 
in 1816, 1817, and 1818 are kept in tons, hundredweights, 
quarters, and pounds, the ton representing 2,240 pounds, 
the hundredweight 112 pounds, and the quarter 28 pounds. 
The teamsters who hauled bar iron over the Frankstown 
Road are credited in tons, hundredweights, quarters, and 
pounds, and shipments to Pittsburgh are entered in the 
same terms. In ordinary commercial transactions neither 
iron nor any other commodity has been weighed by hun- 
dredweights and quarters forming fractions of a gross ton 
at any time within our recollection, the usage being to 
weigh only by tons and pounds, and it is really very sur- 
prising that the English custom should have prevailed at 
Johnstown at so late a day as we have mentioned. Char- 
ges for storage in 1816, 1817, and 1818 appear, however, to 
have been paid in dollars and cents, as we find several 
charges in 1818 in these denominations. We have also 
found within the leaves of the ledger a bill against Isaac 
Proctor which reads as follows : " Juniata Forge, 16th De- 
cember, 1818. Mr. Isaac Proctor Bot of Peter Shoenberger 
2 qrs. 1 lb. Bar Iron, @ $0.08c— $4.56." Juniata forge was 
located at Petersburg, in Huntingdon county, and it was 
built about 1804. In 1814 or 1815 it passed into the hands 
of Dr. Peter Shoenberger. 

The numerous entries in Mr. Proctor's ledger make clear 
the fact that large quantities of bar iron were shipped at 
Johnstown by flatboats in 1816, 1817, and 1818. He did a 
large warehousing business and other owners of warehouses 
were probably active competitors. The aggregate tonnage 



EEVELATIONS OF AN OLD LEDGER. 27 

shipped by Mr. Proctor, whicli was chiefly on account of 
Dr. Shoenberger, amounted to several hundred tons annu- 
ally. Sorne of Mr. Proctor's shipments amounted to 16 and 
19 tons. Some of tliese shipments were made " in my own 
boat," which was doubtless a keel boat. Pittsburgh anti- 
quarians may be interested in learning that the consignees 
of bar iron at Pittsburgh in those days were Richard Bowen 
& Co., Robert Alexander, Allen & Grant, Charles McGee, 
J. Whiting, Robinson, McNickel & Wilds, Irwin & George, 
and Thomas Jackson. 

The chief interest of this old ledger consists in its reve- 
lation of the fact that large quantities of Juniata bar iron 
were shipped to Pittsburgh from Johnstown as early as 
1816. Earlier shipments were made by water from Johns- 
town to the same destination, probably as early as 1800, but 
the ledger of Isaac Proctor shows conclusively that these 
shipments had attained large proportions in 1816, 1817, and 
1818, in which years bar iron had not yet been made at 
Pittsburgh. Next in importance among the facts disclosed 
by Mr. Proctor's ledger is the survival at Johnstown down 
to 1812 of the British system of computing values, and the 
survival down to 1818 of the now long disused hundred- 
weights and quarters. 

From other sources than the old ledger we add some 
other facts which show the prominence of Johnstown as 
an iron centre early in the nineteenth century. 

John Holliday built a forge at Johnstown, on the right 
bank of the Stony creek, about 1809, for the manufacture of 
bar iron from Juniata blooms and pig iron, but we find no 
mention in Mr. Proctor's ledger of any shipments from this 
forge. The dam of this forge was washed away about 1811, 
and subsequently the forge was removed to the north bank 
of the Conemaugh, in the Millville addition to Johnstown, 
where it was operated down to about 1822, Rahm & Bean, 
of Pittsburgh, being the lessees at this time. In 1817 
Thomas Burrell, the proprietor at that time, offered wood- 
cutters " fifty cents per cord for chopping two thousand 
cords of wood at Cambria forge, Johnstown." The forge 
would appear to have been in operation from 1809 to 1822. 

In 1807 or 1808 Shade furnace was built on Shade 



28 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS, 

creek, in Somerset county, about fifteen miles southeast of 
Johnstown, and in 1820 Shade forge was built near the 
furnace. As early as 1820 bar iron was shipped to Pitts- 
burgh from Shade forge. Much of the iron from this forge 
was hauled to Johnstown and thence shipped to Pittsburgh, 
but some of it was shipped in flatboats directly from the 
forge. Pig iron was also hauled to Johnstown from Shade 
furnace for shipment to Pittsburgh. But there was another 
early forge, which was still nearer to Johnstown, on the 
Stony creek, about half a mile below the mouth of Shade 
creek, known as Mary Ann forge, which shipped bar iron 
to Pittsburgh at a still earlier day, and perhaps as early 
as 1811. Richard Geary, the father of Governor John W. 
Geary, was the manager of the forge for about one year, 
and was supercargo of a load of bar iron which was ship- 
ped from the forge down the Stony creek, the Conemaugh, 
and other streams to Pittsburgh. Garret Ream lived at the 
mouth of Ben's creek and built boats which were loaded at 
Johnstown, but he also shipped iron direct from Ben's 
creek, and it is probable that some of this iron came from 
Mary Ann forge, Shade furnace, and Shade forge. 

About 200 pounds of nails, valued at $30, were made at 
Johnstown by one establishment in the census year 1810, 
About this time an enterprise was established at Johnstown 
by Robert Pierson, by whom nails were cut from strips of 
so-called " nail iron " with a machine worked by a treadle, 
but without heads, which were added by hand in a vise. 
The " nail iron " was obtained at the small rolling mills 
in Huntingdon county and hauled in w^agons or sleds to 
Johnstown over the Frankstown Road, 




REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 29 



REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 



FIRST PASTOR OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF 
JOHNSTOWN. WRITTEN IN 1898.* 



I HAVE been requested to prepare a sketch of the hfe 
of Rev. S. H. Terry, the first pastor of the First Presby- 
terian church of Johnstown. Unaided I could not comply 
with this request, but with the assistance of Hon. Cyrus 
L. Pershing, Rev. Dr. B. L. Agnew, and others I present the 
following summary of all the facts that are accessible con- 
cerning the life of this early Johnstown preacher of the 
Gospel, whose remains now rest in Grand View cemetery, 
which overlooks the scene of his last and most successful 
labors. It is a beautiful spot for a city of the dead. 

" Around this lovely valley rise 
The purple hills of Paradise." 

The full name of Mr. Terry was Shadrach Howell 
Terry. He always wrote it S. H. Terry in a cramped, nerv- 
ous hand. Mr. Terry was born on Long Island in 1795. He 
graduated at Yale College in 1819, under that prince of edu- 
cators in his time, Jeremiah Day. His theological training 
was received at Princeton. This information I have received 
from Judge Pershing, who also advises me that Mr. Terry's 
father was for a time a member of the New York Legis- 
lature. Judge Pershing also says that Mr. Terry showed 
to him more than once a volume which had been pre- 
sented to him by Dr. Day, the president of Yale College, 
for excelling in oratory. It will be seen that Mr. Terry's 
educational advantages were excellent and fully in keeping 
with the traditions of the Presbyterian Church. He proba- 
bly entered the Presbyterian ministry soon after 1820, and 

* This sketch, which I prepared by request, was read by the pastor, 
Rev. C. C. Hays, D.D., to a large congregation gathered in the First Pres- 
byterian church of Johnstown on Sunday evening, March 6, 1898. I 
have added some information about other early Johnstown churches. 



30 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

as his wife was a native of Delaware he probably preached 
for a time in that State before coming to Pennsylvania. 
It is not known at what time he came to Pennsylvania, 
but it is certain that he was in 1830 the pastor of the 
Presbyterian congregations of Somerset and Jenner, in 
Somerset county, within the bounds of the Presl^ytery of 
Redstone. Mrs. Mary A. Parks, of the fifth ward of Johns- 
town, remembers very well when Mr. Terry resided and 
preached in Somerset. He did not reside at Somerset lon- 
ger than a year or two, removing from there to Jenner, 
now Jennerstown, which was then a place of more promise 
than it is now, and at which place he continued to reside 
until his removal to Johnstown, in the meantime serving 
the congregations of both Jenner and Somerset. 

We must now go back a few years. About 1820 the 
Protestant citizens of Johnstown, which then embraced a 
population of only a few hundred persons, united in build- 
ing a one-story frame house on a lot of ground near the 
foot of Market street, which was donated for school pur- 
poses by Joseph Johns in 1800, and which lot has come to 
be known as the Union school lot and the building and 
its successors as the Union school-house. In this building 
the children of the first settlers of Johnstown were taught 
in subscription schools the rudiments of an English educa- 
tion, the common-school system not then having been es- 
tablished in Pennsylvania, and in this building were also 
held religious services, the few Protestants of the town using 
it alternately or together. This arrangement did not always 
give satisfaction, and as early as 1829, as I learn from Mr. 
Wesley J, Rose, the Methodists fitted up a warehouse that 
had been used for the storage of iron, and which stood 
where the United. Brethren church now stands on Vine 
street, and worshiped in it until 1838, when they occupied 
their new church on the site of the present Methodist 
church at the corner of Franklin and Locust streets. The 
warehouse and the lot of ground on which it stood were 
donated by Peter Levergood, himself a Lutheran. 

In his " History of the Churches in Blairsville Presby- 
tery " Rev. Dr. Alexander Donaldson says that *' Johnstown, 
where an independent church had a brief previous existence. 



REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 31 

was first supplied with Presbyterian preacliing on October 
31, 1830, by Rev. Shadrach Howell Terry, of Redstone Pres- 
bytery." This sermon was preached in the Union school- 
house.* The Presbytery of Blairsville was formed in 1830 
from the Presbytery of Redstone and held its first meeting 
■on November 16 of that year. It will be remembered that 
it was in this year that Mr. Terry was engaged as pastor 
At Somerset. When Dr. Donaldson referred to " an inde- 
pendent church " at Johnstown he had in mind, as I learn 
from Dr. Agnew, the Congregational, or Independent, church 
which had been organized by Rev, George Roberts, of 
Ebensburg, with five members, all women. This was the 
first organized church in .Johnstown, It existed until 1825, 
when the pastor, Mr. Timothy C. Davies, was dismissed and 
soon afterwards the organization disbanded. Mrs. .Jane Mc- 
Kee was a member of this church and was also one of 
the fifteen original members of the Presbyterian church of 
Johnstown which was subsequently organized. 

Until 1836 Mr. Davies was a clerk in the office of John 
Matthews, the first collector of tolls on the Pennsylvania 
Canal at Johnstown, He subsequently taught school at 
Johnstown and established a brewery on Main street, below 
Market street. About 1840 he moved away from Johnstown. 

Dr. Donaldson says that, by consent of the Presbyteries 
■of Redstone and Blairsville, Mr. Terry began on August 1, 
1832, to supply the church at Johnstown one-fourth of his 
time, and that, "on December 14, 1832, Rev. Samuel Swan 
■organized a Presbyterian church at Johnstown, consisting of 
fifteen members, with Shepley Priestley, James Brown, and 
AVilliam Graham as elders." Judge Pershing says that Mr. 
Terry preached in the Union school-house, and that his 
father, who was a great admirer of Mr. Terry, often took 
him when a small boy to the school-house to hear Mr. Terry 
preach. Dr. Agnew says that Mr, Terry's compensation for 

* In Joseph Johns' charter of the town of Conemaugh, now Johns- 
town, dated at Somerset, November 3, 1800, he made the following pro- 
■sasion : "The said Joseph Johns hereby gives and grants to the said 
future inhabitants two certain lots of ground situate on Market street 
and Chestnut street, in the said town, marked in the general plan 
thereof No. 133 and No. 134, for the purpose of erecting school-houses and 
liouses of public worship, free and clear of all incumbrances whatsoever." 



32 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

one-fourth of his time at Johnstown was $100 a year. He 
was at this time a resident of Jenner, twenty miles away, 
and served the congregation at Somerset as well as the con- 
gregations at Jenner and Johnstown. Irrespective of the 
small salary paid that was a hard life to lead, especially 
when the roads and the weather were bad. Dr. Donaldson's 
account of Mr. Terry's further connection with the church 
at Johnstown is substantially as follows : 

" In 1835 Mr. Terry became a member of Blairsville Pres- 
bytery, and having accepted a call for half time as pastor 
of the Johnstown church he was installed on November 13^ 
1835. Rev. D. Lewis preached. Rev. T. Davis charged the 
pastor, and Rev. Samuel Swan the people. The other half 
of his time was given to Armagh. During the summer of 
1835 a commodious brick house of worship was erected at 
Johnstown and was dedicated on Christmas day, the begin- 
ning of a communion season. Mr. Terry's health failing 
he gradually diminished his labors at Armagh until Octo- 
ber 6, 1840, when Johnstown secured all his time. This- 
church being noticed to be in the territory of Hunting- 
don Presbytery and Synod of Philadelphia the Presbytery 
of Blairsville requested the General Assembly of 1839 to 
change the line of synods so as to place Cambria county 
in the Synod of Pittsburgh and the Presbytery of Blairs- 
ville, which was done. 

" On the night of Wednesday, May 26, 1841, Mr. Terry 
was attacked with bilious pleurisy, which terminated his life 
and labors on June 3d, in the 46th year of his age. Rev. 
Samuel Swan, being there to assist at a communion, preached 
a funeral sermon from Rev. 14 : 13. The salary was con- 
tinued for six months and a sandstone monument erected 
over his remains by the congregation. It is now much de- 
faced by time. The communion on that occasion was ad- 
ministered by Mr. Swan, and for him a call was moderated 
by Rev. David Kirkpatrick on August 16th, accepted on 
October 5th, and his installation as pastor occurred on No- 
vember 9th of the same year." 

In what I have quoted from Dr. Donaldson I have made 
some corrections upon the superior authority of Dr. Agnew. 
Mr. Terry was buried in the Union graveyard, adjoining, 



REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 33 

the ground donated by Mr. Johns on whicli the Union 
school-house was built. The ground for the graveyard had 
also been donated by Mr. Johns. 

After coming to Johnstown Mr. Swan also served the 
congregation at Armagh, beginning in 1845, as Mr. Terry 
had previously done. The trips to Armagh were usually 
made on horseback by both pastors on the towpath of 
the Pennsylvania Canal. Like Jcnner the present hamlet of 
Armagh was at one time a place of some promise. Mr. 
Swan had previously, beginning in 1824, been the pastor 
of several congregations in Ligonier valley. From 1841 to 
1845 Mr. Swan's salary at Johnstown was $500 a year. 

In December, 1869, Rev. William A, Fleming, then the 
pastor of the Presbyterian church of Johnstown, wrote to 
Rev. Dr. B. L. Agnew, at Philadelphia, for such informa- 
tion as he possessed concerning Mr. Terry and received a 
letter from the doctor, under date of December 20, 1869, 
which now lies before me and from which I glean the 
following additional facts. The congregational meeting at 
which Mr. Terry was called to give half his time to the 
church at Johnstown was held in the warehouse of Dr. Ag- 
new's father, Mr. Smith Agnew, on May 4, 1835, and about 
the same time Mr. Terry received a call from the Armagh 
congregation for the other half. The Johnstown call was 
moderated by the Rev. Samuel McFarren and the Armagh 
call was moderated by the Rev. Samuel Swan. The Johns- 
town congregation agreed to pay Mr. Terry a salary of $250 
a year and the Armagh congregation agreed to pay $150, 
making $400 in all. Dr. Agnew says that the Presbytery of 
Redstone promptly dissolved the pastoral relation existing 
between Mr. Terry and the congregations of Somerset and 
Jenner and dismissed him to the Presbytery of Blairsville. 
When Mr. Terry in 1840 gave his whole time to the Johns- 
town congregation his salary was fixed at $400 a year. Dr. 
Agnew also says that Mr. Terry's ministry at Johnstown 
from the time of his first call in 1832 to his death in 1841 
was remarkably successful, 131 additions to the communion 
of the church having been added in that period. From 1830, 
when Mr. Terry preached his first sermon in Johnstown, 
until his death in 1841 was almost eleven years. 



■34 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

From 1835 to 1898 the First Presbyterian churcli of 
Johnstown has had eight regular pastors, whose names I 
mention in the order of their service : Rev. S. II. Terry, 
Rev. Samuel Swan, Rev. Ross Stevenson, Rev. Dr. Benjamin 
L. Agnew, Rev. WilHam A. Fleming, Rev. D. M. Miller, Rev. 
D. J. Beale, and Rev. C. C. Hays. 

It has already been stated that, in the summer of 1835, 
in which year Mr. Terry agreed to give half his time to 
the Johnstown church and the other half to the church at 
Armagh, " a commodious brick house of worship " was 
erected at Johnstown. This church building stood exactly 
on the site of the present First Presbyterian church of 
Johnstown. That the Johnstown congregation was at this 
time sufficiently strong in numbers to erect a substantial 
house of worship was due largely to the successful minis- 
trations of Mr. Terry during the period from 1832 to 1835, 
in which he preached one-fourth of his time at Johns- 
town. Dr. Agnew says that the lot of ground on which 
the church edifice was built was sold to the congregation 
by John Barnes, who was a wagon-maker, a native of Eng- 
land, for $200. One-half of this sum was paid on August 
14, 1834, and the other half was paid in September, 1842, 
when the deed was executed. This lot is now one of the 
most valuable lots in Johnstown. Mr. Rose says that the 
Fuller brothers were the stone masons of the new church, 
that Joseph Haynes was the brickmaker and bricklayer, 
and that Emanuel Shaffer was the carpenter. 

During the pastorate of Dr. Agnew the church edifice of 
1835 was torn down and the present edifice was erected. 
The last sermon in the old church was preached by Dr. 
Agnew on Sunday, August 23, 1863. During the erection 
of the present building the congregation worshiped in the 
town hall for a time and then in the Methodist Protestant 
church on Franklin street. The basement of the new 
•church was opened for service on Sunday, September 3, 
1865, and the whole building was dedicated in April, 1866. 
Quoting from Dr. Donaldson I have already mentioned 
that the first ruling elders of the Presbyterian church of 
Johnstown, elected in 1832, were Shepley Priestley, James 
Brown, and William Graham, Dr. Donaldson adds that on 



REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 35 

July 26, 1835, Smith Agnew, Samuel Douglass, (tamier,) 
and Samuel Kennedy were ordained as elders, probably to 
succeed INIessrs. Priestley, Brown, and Graham, and that on 
April 26, 1S39, Henry Kratzer and Moses Canan were also 
ordained as elders, probably to succeed Messrs. Agnew and 
Douglass, who had left Johnstown. 

Dr. Agnew furnishes me with the following list of the 
original members of the Presbyterian church of Johnstown 
in 1832, when the church was organized, Mr. Terry giving 
to it one-fourth of his time, as has already been stated : 
Mr. and Mrs. Shepley Priestley, William Graham and his 
Avife, Mrs. Esther Graham, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Douglass, 
Mrs. Jane McKee, Mrs. Ann Linton, Mrs. Caroline White, 
Mr. John McClane and his wife, Mrs. Julia McClanc, Mrs. 
Nancy Hayes, Mrs. Elizabeth Eckels, Mrs. Jane Kooken, 
and Mr. James Brown. Many persons then attended the 
services of the church and contributed to its support 
who were not members of its communion. As late as 1869 
three of the original members of 1832 were still living. 
All are now dead. Our honored fellow-citizen, John White, 
now in his 91st year, was one of Mr. Terry's earliest com- 
municants. Mr. White has seen General Arthur St. Clair, 
a soldier of the Revolution. This was in 1818. 

In the spring of 1834 Smith Agnew came to Johnstown 
with his family from Warren, Armstrong county, now 
Apollo, where Dr. Agnew was born in 1833, and built a 
warehouse on the south side of the canal basin in the same 
year. In 1837 Mr. Agnew removed from Johnstown to New 
Alexandria, Westmoreland county, and a few years after- 
wards he again changed his residence to Greensburg. It 
has already been stated that the congregational meeting at 
which a call was extended to Mr. Terry for one-half his 
time was held in Mr. Agnew's warehouse in 1835. 

Dr. Agnew says that a Union Sunday-school had been 
organized at an early day in the Union school-house, under 
the auspices of the Congregationalists, or Independents, al- 
ready mentioned, but in 1834 the Lutherans and Methodists 
withdrew from this school. On January 18, 1835, while 
still worsliiping in the Union school-house, a Presbyterian 
Sunday-school was organized in the same building and 



36 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

Smith Agnew was elected its first superintendent. He con- 
tinued to act as its superintendent until his removal from 
Johnstown two years later. 

Dr. Agnew furnishes me with the following list of the 
teachers in the Presbyterian Sunday-school at its organiza- 
tion in January, 1835 : Samuel Kennedy, Henry Kratzer, 
Evan Roberts, Charles B. Ellis, Emanuel Shaffer, John 
Barnes, David R. Lamb, Sarah Priestley, Margaret McKee, 
Elizabeth McKee, Elizabeth Priestley, Elizabeth Graham, 
Elizabeth McCreary, Elizabeth Barnes, Pamilla Livermore, 
and Martha Moore. 

Mr. Terry removed his family from Jenner to Johnstown 
late in 1835. It consisted of himself, his wife, and two 
children — a son, John Henry, and a daughter, Mary Eliza- 
beth. Mrs. Terry's maiden name was Elizabeth Ponder 
and her home was at Milton, Delaware. She was of Quaker 
birth and education and she appears to have never entirely 
surrendered her Quaker convictions. Her family was once 
prominent in Delaware. Judge Pershing, from whom I 
obtain these facts, says that one of her relatives named 
James Ponder was once Governor of Delaware. 

Judge Pershing's recollection is that Mr. Terry lived in 
1836 in a little house on the east side of Jackson street, 
just north of Main street. In 1837 or 1838 he moved to 
the McClure house, on Canal street, now Washington street, 
above the McConaughy tanyard and on the south side of 
the street. In 1839 he occupied the Lutheran parsonage, 
on the right bank of the Stony creek. In 1840 he lived 
in Thomas Quinn's brick house, on the east side of Frank- 
lin street, on the corner of the alley nearest to Canal street. 
In 1841 he moved to the brick house on the south side of 
Main street, on the corner of the alley above Dibert's store. 
Here he died. This house was the first brick house built 
in Johnstown, if we except a small brick house built by 
Joseph Haynes at his brickyard on the south side of the 
Stony creek. The house on Main street, which is still 
standing, was built in 1828 by Adam Bausman with brick 
made and laid by Joseph Haynes. 

While living in the McClure house in the winter of 
1838 Mr. Terry taught a subscription school for one term 



REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 37 

of probably three months in a small building which stood 
on the bank of the canal almost opposite his residence. 
This building was afterwards purchased by James Purse, 
who built an addition to it and lived in it until he died. 
Among Mr. Terry's pupils Judge Pershing remembers the 
following : Catherine Swegler, Elizabeth Purse, Catherine 
Jane Roberts, Sarah J. Royer, Mary L. Rover, Matilda Sheri- 
dan, Charlotte L. Canan, S. Dean Canan, A. Frank Royer, 
R. H. Patterson, Charles Davis, Ann Davis, Cyrus L. Per- 
shing, and John Henry Terry. By permission of Collector 
Potts Mr. Terry occupied the office of the collector one win- 
ter, probably the winter of 1839, as a recitation room for a 
small class of boys who studied Latin and mathematics, 
perhaps also a little Greek, under his direction. This class 
was composed of R. H. Patterson, afterwards Dr. Patterson, 
of Stoyestown, Somerset county, who boarded with Mr. 
Terry ; Richard Peters, of Blairsville ; and Cyrus L. Per- 
shing, Israel C. Pershing, Campbell Sheridan, Charles M. 
Priestley, and John Henry Terry, of Johnstown. Cyrus L. 
Pershing, and possibly others, recited Latin to Mr. Terry 
privately to the day of his last illness. It may be men- 
tioned also that Cyrus L. Pershing and Campbell Sheridan 
recited Greek to Rev. Mr. Swan in 1842 to prepare them- 
selves to enter the freshman class of Jeiferson College. 

Judge Pershing tells me that he and Campbell Sheridan, 
now Dr. Sheridan, sat up with Mr. Terry the last night he 
lived.* They left him about daylight, Sheridan to go to 
the office of James Potts, the collector of tolls on the 
Pennsylvania Canal, where he was a clerk, and Pershing to 
go to the office of Thomas Lever, at the canal weighlock, 
where he also was a clerk. About 9 o'clock both of these 

* Judge Pershing kept a diary in 1841, and from this diary the Judge 
sends me the following extracts: "May 26, 1841 — Wednesday. — I recited 
my last lesson to Mr. Terry in the weighlock office, from Virgil. . . . 
Mr. Terry spent the day at Mr. Coshun's, and after his return home in 
the evening was attacked suddenly with bilious pleurisy. . . . Jmie 2. 
— Campbell Sheridan and I remained all night with Mr. Terry. He was 
' flighty ' the greater part of the night, and evidently sinking very fast. 
. . . June 3 — Thursday. — Mr. Terry died this morning a little after 9 
o'clock. He was buried June 4. His funeral sermon was preached by 
Rev. Samuel Swan." 



38 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

young men, who afterwards became ruling elders in the 
church founded by Mr. Terry and successively superintend- 
ents of its Sunday-school, were shocked to hear of his death. 
I can myself remember very well how greatly the whole 
town was shocked and grieved to learn that Mr. Terry had 
passed away, I was a pupil at Robert H. Canan's sub- 
scription school at the time, and when Mr. Canan heard 
the sad news he promptly dismissed his school out of re- 
spect to Mr. Terry's memory. Mr. Terry died on Thursday 
morning, June 3. His last words were these: "I have 
preached Christ to this people." These dying words would 
form an appropriate inscription on the new monument 
which it is proposed to erect over Mr. Terry's grave in 
Grand View cemetery. (This has been done.) 

An obituary notice of Mr. Terry was prepared soon after 
his death by Moses Canan, one of Mr. Terry's elders, and 
published in The Presbyterian, of Philadelphia. I have seen 
this notice in the files of The Presbyterian. It is very brief 
but is valuable as an estimate of Mr, Terry's character as 
a man and a minister. 

Mr. Terry died intestate, as the lawyers say, that is he 
did not leave a will, and it became necessary that the court 
should appoint an administrator of his estate, which, it may 
be easily surmised, was very small. Samuel Kennedy wa& 
appointed administrator. Robert L. Johnston was the auditor 
appointed by the court to adjust the account of Mr. Ken- 
nedy. Judge Pershing tells me that Mr. Terry was often in 
straitened circumstances while he lived in Johnstown. He 
was always paid a meagre salary. 

Mr. Terry was a small man, about five feet seven inches 
high, and weighed about 135 pounds. He was neat in his 
dress and reserved and dignified in his general intercourse 
with men. A small dining table, which was owned by Mr. 
Terry at his death, is now a precious possession of the 
Johnstown congregation. 

As has already been mentioned, Mr. Terry's remains 
were laid to rest in the Union graveyard and a plain sand- 
stone monument was erected by the congregation. The 
monument, including the base, was scarcely five feet high. 
Dr. Donaldson says that the monument was much defaced 



REV. SHADRACH HOWELL TERRY. 3^ 

by time in 1874, when his history of the Blairsville Pres- 
bytery was pubhshed. The monument, if it ever deserved 
the name, had, however, been defaced for many years before 
1874, and it continued to be defaced and tlie grave marked 
by it to be neglected for many years after that year. In 
1888, the year before the Johnstown flood, three pubhc- 
spirited citizens of Johnstown, not all of them members of 
the church founded by Mr. Terry or of any church commu- 
nion, purchased a lot in Grand View cemetery and removed 
to it the remains of Mr. Terry and also the long defaced 
monument. The removal took place in the fall of 1888. 
If the intention of these citizens to remove the remains 
of Mr. Terry had not been carried into effect in 1888 the 
removal could never have been made, as the flood of the 
following May would have dashed to pieces the monument 
and forever have obliterated all vestige of the grave itself. 

Soon after Mr. Terry's death his wife and children re- 
moved to Philadelphia, where a brother of Mrs. Terry Avas- 
then living. It was a most unfortunate change. Mrs. Terry 
was poor and probably often in want the remainder of her 
days. Mr. Terry had built up the Presbyterian congrega- 
tion at Johnstown through many years of self-denying ser- 
vice and the congregation should have cared for his widow 
and fatherless children better than it did. 

Judge Pershing says that, of the two children left by Mr. 
Terr}^ the son, John Henry, became a sailor. On a voyage- 
between Philadelphia and Charleston he fell from the rig- 
ging of the vessel and was injured so badly that he died 
shortly afterwards in a hospital at Charleston, The other 
child, Mary Elizabeth, was married in Philadelphia to an 
oysterman named Glazer. Dr. Agnew says that Mrs. Terry 
died in Philadelphia on November 30, 1867, at the home of 
her daughter, and that her son, John Henry, died on August 
8, 1868, as the result of the fall mentioned by Judge Per- 
shing, which Dr. Agnew says occurred during a storm off 
Cape Hatteras. Mrs. Glazer, who is described by Judge 
Pershing as "a pretty, bright little girl" when she lived in 
Johnstown, was living in extremely humble circumstances- 
in Philadelphia when Dr. Agnew called upon her in 1868- 
or 1869, Since then all traces of her have been lost. 



40 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY JOHNSTOWN. 



WEITTEN IN 1909 TO REV. C. C. HAYS, D. D., PASTOR OF THE 
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF JOHNSTOWN. 



Dear Doctor : In compliance with your request I write 
you briefly concerning the Presbyterian Sunday-school of 
seventy years ago in Johnstown as I remember it. Rev. 
Shadrach Howell Terry was then the pastor of the congre- 
gation, but he died in 1841, when he was succeeded by 
Rev. Samuel Swan. It was in 1839 that my father and 
mother first sent me to the Sunday-school (we did not call 
it Sabbath-school) which met then and for many years 
afterwards in the Presbyterian church of that day, occupy- 
ing the site of the present structure. The building, which 
was of brick, contained only one large room, with no other 
furniture whatever than a pulpit, pews, four cannon stoves 
with their long pipes, and strips of carpet in the aisles. I 
do not think that there was a cushioned pew in the whole 
church. There was no musical instrument except Judge 
Roberts's tuning fork, which he used as the leader of the 
unpaid choir, the congregation always joining in the sing- 
ing. The church was entered by two front doors, which 
communicated with two main aisles, and the choir occupied 
pews just inside tlie doors and facing the pulpit. The 
church was first lighted at night with tallow candles, held 
in position by tin sconces hung on nails between the win- 
dows, but lard-oil and sperm-oil lamps were used in the 
pulpit. Subsequently lamps of the same character were 
used throughout the building, and these in time were dis- 
placed by camphene lamps, after which came petroleum 
lamps. The church was not hemmed in by other buildings 
in too close proximity but " stood four-square to all the 
winds that blew." It was therefore in daytime well lighted. 

It was in the room, or auditorium, which I have briefly 
described that the Presbyterian Sunday-school assembled 



RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY JOHNSTOWN. 41 

every Sunday at 9 o'clock in summer and at 2 o'clock in 
winter. Boys and girls of all ages attended and were classi- 
fied chiefly according to their common school attainments, 
with some regard also, of course, to their ages. There was 
no high-sounding " Bible class," but several classes studied 
the Bible regularly with the help of a series of Union 
Question Books, which were well printed and bound in 
blue covers. I remember particularly that one volume was 
devoted to Exodus and another to the Acts of the Apos- 
tles. Our teachers led us from point to point and from 
place to place, with comments that were interesting and 
instructive. No question was ever raised in these classes 
about the inspiration of every word of the Bible ; that 
was taken for granted. We all grew up in those days with 
reverence for the Holy Book and with considerable knowl- 
edge of its contents. Other classes recited the Shorter 
Catechism and read biblical selections. The classes com- 
posed of little boys and little girls were taught very much 
as they are now. Each class occupied a pew and each 
teacher occupied a pew in front of his or her class. We 
had a superintendent and a librarian. 

Now about our teachers. I am writing of a period which 
extended from 1839 to 1850. Moses Canan, a lawyer of 
Scotch-Irish origin, a ruling elder in the church and often 
superintendent of the school, was the oldest of the teachers 
in years. He was one of the most impressive readers I 
have ever heard. George W. Munson and S. H. Smith, 
prominent business men of New England extraction, were 
good teachers. So also were James Potts and Henry Krat- 
zer, the former born of Scotch-Irish parents and the latter 
a Pennsylvania German. So also were Campbell Sheridan 
and Cyrus L. Pershing, young men of liberal education, who 
afterwards became superintendents of the Sunday-school, 
ruling elders in the church, and prominent in the profes- 
sions of their choice. Both were natives of Western Penn- 
sylvania. There were other teachers, including many ladies, 
whom I need not mention, if indeed I could remember the 
names of all of them. There Avas always a full attendance 
of " scholars," and I think that there was never a scarcity 
of teachers. All the teachers I have mentioned by name 



42 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

were at one time or another in charge of classes which 
used the Union Question Books above referred to. 

Connected with the school was a carefully selected li- 
brary of well-printed books, from which every " scholar "■ 
could select one volume every Sunday, returning it the 
next Sunday. There was also a monthly missionary paper, 
well printed and freely illustrated, a copy of which was 
given to each of us as often as it appeared. How proud 
we were of these literary treasures — ^the handsomely-bound 
books especially ! The books, of which there was a goodly 
number, covered almost every subject that would interest a 
healthy boy or girl ; not one of them was of a sectarian 
character. We had books that inspired and ministered to 
a love of the history of our own and of other countries ; 
books devoted to natural history ; books about the North 
American Indians, the natives of Iceland, the Sandwich 
Islands, and the " heathen " everywhere ; books that de- 
scribed the manners, customs, and habits of the civilized 
or half-civilized peoj^le of other countries than our own. 
We had Peter Parley's books, the Rollo books, and a series 
entitled " Travels About Home." I think that there was 
not a work of fiction in the whole library, although there 
could not have been any possible objection to such story 
books as " Robinson Crusoe " and the " Swiss Family Rob- 
inson." Perhaps we did have them ; I hope so. Any way 
the boys of our school all read these stories and talked 
about them, and, of course, the girls did too. We had 
Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," " Sanford and Merton," and 
" The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." The tendency of all 
the books in the library was to stimulate a love of good 
books, and without a love of such books no boy or girl 
will ever amount to very much. That we could get a new 
book every Sunday was one of the strongest reasons why 
we were glad to attend the Sunday-school at all. 

Now I am told that the library of sixty and seventy 
years ago no longer exists — that the boys and girls who 
attend the Presbyterian Sunday-school no longer carry 
home with them books of the character of those I have 
described. Instead I am informed that these boys and girls 
are compelled to rely mainly on the Cambria Library for 



RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY JOHNSTOWN. 43 

reading matter, and that the books they obtain at the h- 
brary are largely modern works of fiction. What books, 
if any, little children can get at the Cambria Library that 
will take the place of the books that are printed especially 
for Sunday-school children I am not informed. Is the 
substitution of modern works of fiction for the well-select- 
ed books of the Presbyterian Sunday-school of long ago 
a change for the better or the worse ? Undoubtedly it is 
for the worse. No thoughtful person will say otherwise. 

William F. Prosser, the son of David Prosser and about 
one year my junior, was one of the Presbyterian Sunday- 
school "scholars" in 1840, 1841, and 1842, and the only one 
except myself that I feel sure is now living. Growing 
to manhood elsewhere he made an honorable record in the 
civil war, at its close being colonel of a Tennessee regiment. 
He was subsequently a member of Congress from Tennes- 
see, a member of the Centennial Commission from that 
State, and postmaster of Nashville. He has long been a 
citizen of the new State of Washington and is at present 
city treasurer of Seattle. 

As a general proposition I think that the old times in 
Johnstown were better than the new. If seventy years ago 
we did not have a homogeneous population we had a pop- 
ulation that was perfectly assimilated. Everybody spoke 
the English language. We had no class distinctions. There 
were no rich men. There were no long rows of drinking 
saloons. The Washingtonian temperance movement, which 
originated in Baltimore in 1840, gave a great blow to intem- 
perance in Johnstown in the early 40s, and it was followed 
in the same decade by the Sons of Temperance and the 
Cadets of Temperance. AVe had two literary societies, each 
with a large membership of adults, which discussed regu- 
larly the leading questions of the day and of other days. 
There was marked literary taste and much literar}'- culture 
in Johnstown from 1840 to 1850 and for a few years after 
1850. There were no "Sunday morning papers" in those 
days. If we had no public library there were a few books 
in almost every home, and it was a common practice for 
the bo3^s and girls to borrow books from one another. We 
had in those days two volunteer military companies, com- 



44 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

posed of our leading citizens. Military encampments, in 
which these companies participated, took place every year 
in Johnstown and neighboring towns, and they were great 
occasions for the boys and for others, as were also the pa- 
rades which occurred more frequently at home. 

The decade from 1840 to 1850 embraced three very ex- 
citing Presidential campaigns, which greatly interested the 
men and women and also the boys and girls of Johns- 
town — the election of General Harrison and John Tyler 
over Van Buren and Johnson in 1840, the defeat of Hen- 
ry Clay in 1844 by James K. Polk, and the election of 
General Zachary Taylor over Lewis Cass in 1848. It wit- 
nessed the annexation of Texas in 1845 and the war with 
Mexico in 1846, the settlement in 1846 of the controversy 
with Great Britain over our northwestern boundary, the 
acquisition of California and other Rocky Mountain and 
Pacific Coast territory in 1848, the discovery of gold in 
California in 1848, the Irish famine which so stirred the 
sympathies of the people of our country in 1846, 1847, and 
1848, the passage of the tariff of 1842 and its repeal in 
1846, and the great Pittsburgh fire in 1845. 

I well remember the passage through Johnstown in 1846 
of Philadelphia volunteer soldiers on their way to Mexico 
and the return of the Cambria county volunteers in 1848. 
The latter were welcomed and praised at a large meeting 
in their honor in Levergood's orchard, on which occasion 
Cyrus L. Pershing delivered an address which I heard. 
When the Philadelphia volunteers reached Johnstown over 
the Portage Railroad on their way to Mexico they were 
distributed in squads among the leading families and given 
a good supper. I remember standing in awe of these sol- 
diers with their new uniforms and bright muskets. 

We had good public schools from 1839 to 1850, which 
were taught by Samuel Douglass, Orson H. Smith, David 
F. Gordon, Cyrus L. Pershing, Robert H. Canan, and oth- 
ers, all of whom were well qualified for their work. The 
schools were ungraded, which was a great advantage over 
the present system — the younger pupils learning from the 
recitations of their elders. The classes of boys and girls 
were required to toe the mark once or twice a day in 



RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY JOHNSTOWN. 45 

spelling and reading, and they learned to spell and read 
correctly because they were taught correctly. Words were 
divided into syllables and so pronounced, and sentences 
received proper emphasis. The multiplication table was 
taught by a whole class reciting it in concert. Instruction 
in the schoolroom in those days was largely oral ; now it is 
largely lacking in this most desirable feature. That I may 
not lose the thread and purpose of this letter reading aloud 
formed a part of the exercises of the Sunday-schools of 
that time in Johnstown, all of which were conducted in the 
same spirit and substantially upon the same lines as the 
one I have briefly described. 

Johnstown itself was a beautiful town in my boyhood 
days. Its surrounding hills were covered with dense for- 
ests down to the very margins of the streams which then 
bounded it on nearly all sides. These streams were not 
polluted in any way. The water in their channels was as 
clear as crystal and there was a larger volume of water 
than now. Fish abounded in them ; now there are none. 
Every spring boys and men organized a fishing party and 
swept the Stony creek with a brush net, securing hundreds 
of fish, which were fairly divided and carried home in tri- 
umph. In the town, here and there, were many apple or- 
chards which had been planted by Joseph Johns and the 
other native Pennsylvanians who were its first settlers, and 
many sycamores, black and white walnuts, and other native 
trees were still standing. There were many log houses, 
reminders of the pioneers, and a few brick houses. Every 
house had a garden attached to it, and there were lilacs, 
poppies, hollyhocks, sunflowers, and other old-fashioned 
flowers everywhere. There were but two houses in all 
"Kernville" in 1840. There was no smoke of mill or fac- 
tory, but there was little want in any home. Nearly all 
the business of the town was dependent upon the Pennsyl- 
vania Canal and the Portage Railroad, which had given the 
town its business start only a few years before. As we all 
know, every town, like every country, has its golden age, 
and I candidly believe that the golden age of Johnsto^m 
was in the ten or fifteen years before 1850. I feel sure 
that my early friend, W. C. Lewis, will confirm my opinion. 



46 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 



EDWIN AUGUSTUS VICKROY. 



PIONEER FARMER, SURVEYOR, AND OLD-TIME MERCHANT 
OF JOHNSTOWN. WRITTEN IN 1896. REVISED IN 1910. 



Edwin Augustus Vickroy, son of Thomas Vickroy, 
was born at Alum Bank, Bedford county, Pennsylvania, on 
March 8, 1801, and died at his home at Ferndale, a suburb 
of Johnstown, on May 1, 1885, aged over 84 years. 

Thomas Vickroy was born in Cecil county, Maryland, on 
October 18, 1756. His father was Hugh Vickroy, a native 
of England, who commanded a vessel plying between Balti- 
more and Glasgow. His mother was Margaret Phillips, a 
native of this country. Thomas was the oldest of eight 
children. When he was about 15 years old his father was 
lost at sea and very soon afterwards his mother died. In 
1772 Thomas moved to Bedford county and soon settled at 
Alum Bank. He had learned surveying in Maryland, and 
in Bedford county, which then embraced a large part of 
Western Pennsylvania, he found abundant opportunities to 
practice his profession. He was a noted surveyor in the 
last decades of the eighteenth century and the first part of 
the nineteenth century. He was so prominent in his pro- 
fession that he was selected, in conjunction with George 
Wood, deputy surveyor of Bedford county, to survey the 
town of Pittsburgh into streets, alleys, and lots in 1784. 
Vickroy street and Wood street were named in their honor. 

Thomas Vickroy was twice married. His first wife was 
Elizabeth Francis, who was a half sister of the "sainted 
and lovely " Mrs. Emily Ogle, of Somerset, and also a sister 
of Mrs. Nancy Williams, of Schellsburg. At her death she 
left five children. Mr. Vickroy's second wife was Sarah 
Ann Atlee, a daughter of Judge William Augustus Atlee, 
of Lancaster, who was a member of the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania from 1777 to 1799 and was the founder of a 
distinguished family. Several of his descendants have been 



EDWIN AUGUSTUS VICKROY. 47 

prominent in the legal and medical professions. The second 
wife of Thomas Vickroy was a woman of great beauty, 
who frequently graced the society of Bedford Springs in the 
old times. Her granddaughter, Mrs. Boyd, of Dublin, In- 
diana, tells us that she had heard her grandmother say that 
she had danced in the same set with Theodosia Burr, the 
beautiful and accomplished daughter of Aaron Burr, on the 
occasion of Theodosia's last visit to Bedford Springs. She 
was lost at sea in the winter of 1812-13. After coming to 
Pennsylvania Thomas Vickroy always lived at Alum Bank. 
At the time of his marriage to Miss Atlee he had already 
accumulated considerable wealth. He died on June 9, 1845, 
in his 89th year, and was buried in the cemetery attached 
to Dunning's Creek meeting house of the Friends, or Qua- 
kers, near Alum Bank. A few years ago a monument was 
erected over his grave, bearing a suitable inscription com- 
memorating his services as a Revolutionary soldier. 

Thomas Vickroy's name is prominently associated with 
the military movements of George Rogers Clark against 
the Indians and British in the West during tlie Revolution- 
ary war. In Albach's Annals of the West Thomas A^ickroy 
has left an account of his connection with one of General 
Clark's expeditions. He says: "In April, 1780, I went to 
Kentucky, in company with eleven flatboats with movers. 
We landed on the 4th of May, at the mouth of Beargrass 
•creek, above the Falls of the Ohio. I took my compass and 
■chain along, to make a fortune by surveying, but when we 
got there the Indians would not let us survey." Mr. Vick- 
roy then gives some details of General Clark's movements 
against the enemy and adds : " On the 1st day of August, 
1780, we crossed the Ohio river and built the two block 
houses where Cincinnati now stands. I was at the building 
of the block houses. Then, as General Clark had appointed 
me commissary of the campaign, he gave the military stores 
into my hands and gave me orders to maintain that post 
for fourteen days. He left with me Captain Johnston and 
about twenty or thirty men who were sick and lame. On 
the fourteenth day the army returned with 16 scalps, 
having lost 15 men killed." Joseph, a brother of Thomas 
Vickroy, was killed in the battle of Germantown. 



48 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

In 189G Mrs. Boyd, who was one of the daughters of 
Edwin A, Vickroy, wrote us as follows : " When I was a 
little girl one of my aunts gave me a strand of beautiful 
dark brown hair out .of the queue my grandfather sported 
in this expedition. Along with the hair of my other grand- 
parents I have worn it as a breastpin for 40 years. It was 
my first breastpin. I write with it on." 

As already stated, Edwin A. Vickroy, in whose memory 
this sketch is written, was born at Alum Bank in 1801, 
He was the third child of Thomas Vickroy by his second 
marriage. Edwin was reared to manhood at Alum Bank. 
Here he went to subscription schools, one of which was 
taught by Robert Way. Under his father's instructions he- 
became a skillful surveyor. When about 19 years old he 
went to Ohio with Robert Way, the latter remaining there. 
Ohio was then "the West," and like "the West" of later 
years it presented attractions to young men which were 
hard to resist. Edwin clerked in a store in Cincinnati for 
two years. While on a visit to Warren county, adjoining 
Hamilton county, in which latter county Cincinnati is lo- 
cated, he was fortunate in making the acquaintance of 
Judge George Harlan and his family, including his daugh- 
ter Cornelia, whom he subsequently married. She was born 
at the Harlan homestead, near Ridgeville, Warren county, 
on August 13, 1806. Her mother's maiden name was Esther 
Eulas. The Harlan family has been distinguished in the 
history of our country for many generations, contributing 
many prominent men to the bench and bar and to the po- 
litical arena. Judge Harlan came from North Carolina. He 
married Miss Eulas while .living in Kentucky. 

Edwin A. Vickroy and Cornelia Harlan were married at 
the Harlan homestead on May 15, 1823, and immediately 
afterwards went to Schellsburg, Bedford county, not far from 
Alum Bank, where Mr. Vickroy became a country store- 
keeper and also postmaster. Schellsburg was then a place 
of some importance, as it was located on the leading turn- 
pike which connected the eastern and western parts of 
Pennsylvania. But in a short time Mr. Vickroy and his 
wife returned to Ohio, near Mrs. Vickroy's old home, where 
he again engaged in merchandising, for which occupation 



EDWIN AUGUSTUS VICKROY. 49 

he seems to have always had a strong liking. In this busi- 
ness Mr. Vickroy continued for several years, but, owing to 
a great fall in the price of pork, in which product he dealt 
as a merchant, he concluded to return again to Pennsyl- 
vania. Those were the days when Ohio had few manufac- 
tures to create a home market for farm products. Mr. Vick- 
roy's father transferred to him a beautifully located tract 
of land on the left bank of Stony creek, near Johnstown, 
as a home, on which he soon built a two-story log house, 
weather-boarded, to which he subsequently added a substan- 
tial frame addition, with wide porches. This tract had not 
been improved as a farm. It embraced 160 acres of rich 
and level meadow and hilly woodland. It was then known 
as Horseshoe Valley, but Mr. Vickroy soon changed the 
name to Ferndale. A more charming rural home could not 
then have been found anywhere. On one side Horseshoe 
Valley was hedged in by the everlasting hills and on tlie 
other side it was bounded by the beautiful Stony creek. 
The primeval forest which formed a part of the 160 acres 
was alive with song birds and other birds. Pheasants and 
partridges, squirrels and rabbits, wild fowl on the bosom of 
the Stony creek, and an abundance of fish in its waters 
furnished food for the table. To this home Mr. and Mrs. 
Vickroy and their three children, Angeline, Louise, and 
Helen, came in 1831 and there Mr. and Mrs. Vickroy lived 
the remainder of their days, except about two years spent 
in Johnstown from 1848 to 1850. Mr. Vickroy at once 
engaged in farming and at the same time returned to his 
profession as a surveyor. He also built a saw-mill on the 
Stony creek and for many years the mill sawed large quan- 
tities of lumber from the timber on the farm and from the 
neighborhood. John Barnes, wagon-maker, of Johnstown^ 
obtained supplies of lumber from this mill for many years. 
In a short time Mr. Vickroy could boast a large ac- 
quaintance among the people of Cambria and Somerset 
counties, and because of his general intelligence, his dig- 
nified and courtly bearing, and his interest in the public 
welfare he was popular and greatly respected. He was an 
ardent friend of common schools and was often chosen a 
school director. Fruit growing became a special feature of 



50 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

Mr. Vickroy's farm work, and he soon had an orchard of 
choice varieties of apples and other fruits, of which he was 
very proud. Mrs. Vickroy added to the charm of the Fern- 
dale home by her enthusiasm in the cultivation of flowers. 

It was not many years after Mr. Vickroy and his family 
took possession of the Horseshoe farm until he was elected 
■a justice of the peace for Conemaugh township, Cambria 
county, a position that well fitted in with his profession as 
a surveyor, because both justices of the peace and surveyors 
in those days were accustomed to prepare articles of agree- 
ment and other documents relating to transfers of real 
■estate. Mr, Vickroy possessed a judicial temperament, and 
being a remarkably neat and accurate penman he found 
much to occupy his time for many years both as surveyor 
and justice of the peace. He was now known as Squire 
Vickroy. He was at one time elected county surveyor. 
At first he was a Whig and afterwards a Republican. 

But in a wider sense than as a farmer, surveyor, and 
justice of the peace Mr. Vickroy became known to the peo- 
ple of Cambria and Somerset counties. He was the head of 
one of the most intellectual families that have ever lived in 
either of these counties. Mrs. Vickroy was a woman of ex- 
ceptional intelligence. The Harlan blood ran in her veins. 
She had read much and thought much upon most of the 
subjects which then received the attention of thinking 
men and women, as did also Mr. Vickroy. They were 
both familiar with the best literature of the day. As their 
children grew up they shared the literary tastes and ac- 
quired many of the intellectual accomplishments of their 
parents. Books and newspapers were everywhere in the 
Vickroy home. The slavery question, the Mexican war, the 
merits and demerits of all the political policies and political 
leaders of the eventful period from 1840 to 1860 and after- 
wards, were topics of daily discussion on the Ferndale farm. 
Visitors to the Vickroy home, which was always one of 
old-time hospitality, at once found themselves in an atmos- 
phere which aroused and stimulated their own interest in 
public questions and in literary subjects. In their religious 
belief Mr. and Mrs. Vickroy were Swedenborgians, to which 
denomination Thomas Vickroy and his wife also belonged. 



EDWIX AUGUSTUS VICKROY. 51 

And so the years rolled on. The Vickroy home became 
known throughout Cambria and Somerset counties as a 
centre of vigorous and independent thought and advanced 
views upon all subjects which were then attracting public 
attention. In the meantime the farm was not neglected and 
the Vickroy apples and other fruits took premiums at the 
county fairs and at the meetings of the American Pomo- 
logical Society at Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Although a 
man of fine and commanding presence, straight as an In- 
dian, and with the address of a born leader of men Mr. 
Vickroy never sought political honors. He was, however, 
always ready to give a reason for the faith that was in him. 

About 1848 the longing for an active mercantile life 
returned to Mr. Vickroy and he opened on Clinton street 
in Johnstown a general store in a building which he had 
built on a lot of ground he owned a few feet south of the 
corner of Washington and Clinton streets. Here he carried 
on for several years, and with varying fortune, a general 
store which w^as well patronized. But the times were hard, 
very little money was in circulation, the Cambria Iron 
Works had not been built, and again Mr. Vickroy was con- 
strained to quit storekeeping. Thenceforward to the end 
of his days he devoted his time to the work of the farm 
and to his books and the society of his friends, mingling 
but little with "the madding crowd" and its "ignoble strife." 

Mrs. Vickroy died at the Vickroy homestead on August 
30, 1880, and Mr. Vickroy died at the old home on May 1, 
1885. Each lived to a good old age. Their remains now 
rest in Grand View cemetery. They were the parents of 
many children, both boys and girls. 

We have mentioned Mr. and Mrs. Vickroy's three old- 
est daughters, Angeline, Louise, and Helen. Angeline and 
Louise became teachers, as did also Cornelia, another daugh- 
ter. All the children, with scarcely an exception, inherited 
the literary tastes of their parents. Louise established a 
wide reputation as a writer of graceful poetry and prose. 
She was a contributor to Grace Greenwood's Little Pilgrim 
and to Graliams Magazine in the old days and in later years 
to The Century and other periodicals. In 1860 she delivered 
a lecture on " The Poets and Poetry of America" before a 



52 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

large audience in the First Presbyterian church of Johns- 
town. Her poems were published in book form about the 
same time. Mr. Vickroy himself occasionally manifested 
a decided talent for poetic expression. Of the daughters 
referred to Helen (Mrs. Austin) is the only one now living. 
Her home is at Richmond, Indiana. To her and her sister 
Louise (Mrs. Boyd) and to another daughter, Laura, now 
living at Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, we are indebted for 
many of the facts contained in this sketch. 

As far back as 1850 we remember a bright new school- 
house which had been built on the edge of a wooded reser- 
vation at the top of Ben's Creek Hill. From this school- 
house a winding path led to the Vickroy home through a 
dense growth of oaks, maples, hickories, and other forest 
trees. There were no intervening houses or cultivated fields 
or gardens. Most if not all of the path was on the hillside 
of the Vickroy farm itself. The quietness, the restfulness, 
the peacefulness, and the sylvan beauty of the whole scene 
can never be effaced from the memories of those now liv- 
ing who often wended their way w^ith trooping children 
from the attractive school-house down the winding path 
to the hospitable home that was built eighty years ago. 

"The old road, the hill road, the road that used to go 
Through brier and bloom and gleam and gloom among 

the wooded waj'S. 
Oh, now that we might follow it as once we did, you know ! 
The old road, the home road, the road of happy days." 




JOHN KOYER, HUGUENOT. 53 



JOHN ROYER, HUGUENOT. 



FROM THE JOHNSTOWN DAILY TRIBUNE OF SATURDAY, 
MARCH 11, 1899. REVISED IN 1910. 



As ALL readers of Pennsylvania history know, the early 
settlers of William Penn's province were drawn from many 
European countries. Before the granting of his famous 
charter in 1681 emigrants from Sweden and Holland and a 
few Finns and some English had made settlements on the 
Delaware. After the charter had been granted England 
and Wales sent large numbers of Quakers and a few Episco- 
palians ; the Continent sent still larger numbers of Luther- 
ans and other Protestants and a few Roman Catholics ; Ire- 
land and France also sent a few Roman Catholics, chiefly to 
Philadelphia, and the North of Ireland sent many Scotch- 
Irish Presbyterians. Many Protestants came from Germany, 
France, Switzerland, and Holland. The French, Swiss, and 
Dutch immigrants have been confounded with the German 
immigrants because they usually spoke their South German 
dialect and were of similar religious convictions, and also 
because they sailed from the same ports and settled in the 
same localities as the more numerous Germans. They were 
thus very naturally regarded as forming a part of the 
great German wave of immigration to Pennsylvania in the 
eighteenth century. Thousands of these French, Swiss, and 
Dutch immigrants have left descendants who are known as 
Pennsylvania Germans but who are not Germans at all. 

Most of the French Protestants who emigrated to Penn- 
sylvania came originally from the provinces of Alsace, Lor- 
raine, and Champagne, in Eastern France, although these 
emigrants had for some time previously, owing to religious 
persecution at home, lived in more friendly German, Dutch, 
and Swiss districts. These French Protestants were known 
as Huguenots. Other Huguenots came from other provin- 
ces in France, and these emigrated in large numbers to 



54 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

New York, South Carolina, and other colonies and provinces 
of the New World, including Pennsylvania. Some Hugue- 
nots had found an asylum in England and Ireland after 
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 before emi- 
grating to this country. 

Among the Huguenot emigrants from Central France to 
Pennsylvania in the early days were three brothers named 
Royer. From one of these brothers came John Royer and 
his descendants. The brothers settled in Lancaster county. 
The Rev. Mr. Stapleton, of Lewisburg, Union county, an 
authority upon Huguenot emigration to Pennsylvania, says 
that Sebastian Royer came to Lancaster county in 1721. 
We next hear of the family name during the Revolution, 
when Samuel Royer, the father of John Royer, above men- 
tioned, was a commissary in the Revolutionary army. This 
Samuel Royer had a brother named Sebastian. In Baird's 
Hugiienot Emigration to America I find mention made of Noe 
Royer, who emigrated to South Carolina between 1681 and 
1686. He was the grandson of Sebastian Royer, a native of 
Tours, the principal town in the province of Tourraine, 
in Central France. Noe Royer himself was born in Tours. 
His father's name was also Noe Royer. I mention his an- 
cestry because of the coincidence in the name of his ances- 
tor, Sebastian Royer, and that of the Lancaster immigrant 
mentioned by Mr. Stapleton, and also of Sebastian, the 
brother of Samuel Royer. Samuel Royer's wife was Cathe- 
rine Laubshaw, a native of Switzerland. There are Royers 
still living in Lancaster county. 

John Royer, the subject of this sketch, was born in 
Franklin county, Pennsylvania, on November 22, 1778. We 
first hear of him as a clerk at Chambers' Iron Works, 
about four miles from Loudon, in Path valley, Franklin 
county. These works embraced Mt. Pleasant furnace and 
forge, which were built about 1783 by three brothers, Wil- 
liam, Benjamin, and George Chambers. The works were 
burned in 1843. In 1800 John Dunlap built Logan fur- 
nace, near Bellefonte, in Centre county, and about 1805-6-7 
John Royer and his brother-in-law, Andrew Boggs, operated 
this furnace under lease from Mr. Dunlap, the firm name 
being Boggs & Royer. 



JOHN KOYER, HUGUENOT. 55 

We next hear of Mr. Royer as the builder, between 
1808 and 1810, of Cove forge, in Blair county, then Hunt- 
ingdon county, Penns3dvania, on the Frankstown branch 
of the Juniata river, about seventeen miles east of Holli- 
daysburg. Mr. Royer carried on Cove forge for ten or 
twelve years. In the spring of 1821 he moved from Cove 
forge to Williamsburg, in Huntingdon county, and in the 
same year he was the successful Whig candidate for the 
lower branch of the Pennsylvania Legislature, defeating Da- 
vid R. Porter, the Democratic candidate, also an ironmaster, 
who was at the time one of the owners of Sligo forge, on 
Spruce creek, Huntingdon county, and who was elected Gov- 
ernor of Pennsylvania in 1838 and again in 1841, serving 
six years. In 1823 Mr. Royer moved from Williamsburg to 
a point on the Kiskiminitas river below Saltsburg, but on 
the Westmoreland side of the river, to engage in the 
manufacture of salt in company with his brother-in-law, 
Andrew Boggs, who had laid out the town of Saltsburg in 
the winter of 1816-17 and had given it its name. 

From the Kiskiminitas river Mr. Royer moved to Pitts- 
burgh in the spring of 1826, where he opened an iron 
warehouse. At the end of three years, in the fall of 1829, 
the Pennsylvania Canal having been completed to Blairs- 
ville, Mr. Royer changed his residence to that place, where 
he acted as the agent for the Pennsylvania and Ohio 
Transportation Company, goods then being trans-shipped 
at Blairsville and hauled over the Northern Turnpike to 
Huntingdon, where they met the eastern division of the 
canal. Some time in 1832 Mr. Royer moved to Saltsburg, 
again engaging in the business of making salt, this time at 
" Boggs's Works," about two miles east of Saltsburg, on the 
Westmoreland side of the Conemaugh river. In the spring 
of 1834 Mr. Royer transferred his lease of the above named 
salt works to George AV. Swank and moved to Johnstown, 
becoming the agent of the Pennsylvania and Ohio line of 
boats and cars for the transportation of freight and pas- 
sengers between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The Portage 
Railroad was opened for business in the spring of tliat 
year. In this occupation, for which he was admirably 
fitted, Mr. Royer spent the next eight or ten years, when ill- 



56 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

health compelled him to retire. He was succeeded by Wil- 
liam I. Maclay. In the fall of 1838 Mr. Swank also moved 
his family to Johnstown, where he died on May 29, 1856, 
at the age of 46 years and a few weeks. He was born in 
Westmoreland county in 1810 and was my father. 

Mr. Royer died at his residence on Washington street, 
then called Canal street, east of Franklin street, on March 
5, 1850, aged 71 years, three months, and thirteen days. His 
popularity at Johnstown is attested by his election in 1841 
as the Whig candidate for the lower house of the Legis- 
lature from the district composed of Somerset and Cam- 
bria counties. Ill-health prevented him from being a can- 
didate for re-election in 1842 and Major John Linton be- 
came the Whig candidate and was elected. 

Mr. Royer was a man of more than ordinary ability. 
His disposition was genial and his manners were courtly. 
He was a gentleman of the old school. Mrs. Royer, whose 
maiden name was Jane Boggs, also a native of Franklin 
county, but of Scotch-Irish ancestry, survived her husband 
many years, dying at Johnstown, at the home of her son- 
in-law, Hon. Cyrus L. Pershing, on October 28, 1869, aged 85 
years and seven months. She was born on March 13, 1784. 
The remains of both Mr. and Mrs. Royer now rest in Grand 
View cemetery. To Mr. and Mrs. Royer were born eleven 
children, only two of whom are now living, Sarah Jane, who 
became the wife of Robert Bingham, and Mary Letitia, who 
married Hon. Cyrus L. Pershing. We give their names as 
follows : Catherine, wife of Gen. Edward Hamilton, John 
Boggs, Samuel J., Theodore, Elizabeth, wife of Dr. Charles 
D. Pearson, Alfred, Nancy, wife of William L. Shryock, 
Alexander, Sarah Jane, wife of Robert Bingham, Andrew 
Francis, and Mary L., wife of Hon. Cyrus L. Pershing. On 
Sunday, January 22, 1899, Alfred Royer, the last survivor 
of John Royer's sons, died at the residence of his brother- 
in-law, William L. Shryock, in Johnstown. Alfred Royer 
told us that he was the captain of the first train of freight 
cars that passed over the Portage Railroad from Johnstown 
to Hollidaysburg. This was in the spring of 1834. For 
more than fifty years the name of Royer has been prom- 
inent in the business and social life of Johnstown. 



MAJOR JOHN LINTON. 57 



MAJOR JOHN LINTON. 



PREPARED AND PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION IN 
SEPTEMBER, 1881, AND SINCE REVISED. 



In the latter part of the eighteenth century there Hved 
in County Derry, Ireland, a Scotch-Irish farmer named 
William Linton, who had three children, William, Mary, and 
John. John, the youngest, was born in 1773. He was well 
educated, his studies embracing the higher mathematics, 
surveying being a branch which he had completely master- 
ed. While still pursuing his studies he became involved 
in the political troubles which culminated in the Rebel- 
lion of 1798 and was forced to fly to America. Landing at 
Baltimore he obtained employment as a clerk. In a short 
time he removed to Greencastle, Franklin county, Pennsyl- 
vania, where he was first employed as a clerk and after- 
wards opened a general store, which he kept for several 
years. Here he met and about 1801 married Ann Park. 

The father of Ann Park was Robert Park. In 1794 the 
Park family emigrated from Ireland to Philadelphia, where 
the father, who was a teacher of mathematics, soon after- 
wards died. His widow subsequently married Colonel James 
Johnston, a surveyor, who had served in the Pennsylvania 
Line during the Revolution. His home was near Green- 
castle, to which place the children of Robert Park removed 
with their mother, and where Ann Park, as we have stated, 
married John Linton. The remaining children of Robert 
Park were all married at Greencastle. Elizabeth married 
John Agnew ; John married Mary Lang, the daughter of 
Rev. James Lang, a Presbyterian minister ; and Mary mar- 
ried Ninian Cochran, a surveyor of Cumberland, Maryland. 

About 1806 John Linton removed with his family to 
Frankstown, Huntingdon county, now Blair county, where 
he and his brother-in-law, John Agnew, opened a general 
store. Soon afterwards the firm was dissolved and John 



58 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

Agnew removed to Ebensburg, Cambria county, where he 
resided for several years. One of his daughters, Maria, 
married Dr. David T. Storm, a pliysician of Johnstown. 

John Linton removed from Frankstown to Johnstown in 
1810, where his early education as a surveyor was brought 
into requisition for the support of his family, conveyanc- 
ing being in those days part of a surveyor's profession. He 
surveyed many tracts of land in Cambria county and wrote 
the articles of agreement and the deeds for their convey- 
ance. In 1811 he was elected one of the commissioners 
of Cambria county, taking his seat with the board on 
the 26th of October of that year. The board consisted 
of James Magellan, Andrew Anderson, and John Linton. 
In October, 1814, his term of office expired, and in October, 
1815, he was re-elected for another term of three years and 
was qualified on November G, his associates being John 
Rhey and James Magehan. John Agnew was elected clerk 
of the board. The minutes of the board show that John 
Linton acted with the commissioners for the last time on 
the 9th of April, 1818. In the minutes of the board, dated 
August 6, 1818, in the handwriting of Moses Canan, clerk, 
we read that " David Price and Joseph Burgoon, the com- 
missioners, in conjunction wdth the court of common pleas, 
appointed Richard Lewis as commissioner until the next 
general election, in the place of John Linton, deceased." 
He died on July 25, 1818, aged 45 years. His remains now 
rest in Grand View cemetery. Soon after his removal to 
Johnstown John Linton was appointed postmaster of that 
place, an appointment which he held until his death. He 
was succeeded in this office by Shepley Priestley. The first 
postmaster at Johnstown was John Beaty, who made his 
first quarterly return on July 1, 1811, but the date of his 
appointment can not be given, as the records of appoint- 
ments made during that period have been destroyed by fire. 
His successor, John Linton, was appointed on July 17, 1811, 
being the second incumbent of the office. 

At the time of his death John Linton resided in the 
building on the corner of Main and Franklin streets, the 
site of which was afterwards occupied by the drug store 
of C. T, Frazer. A few years after the death of her hus- 



MAJOR JOHN LINTON. 59 

band Mrs. Linton purchased the upper half of the square 
of ground lying between Market and Walnut and Main and 
Locust streets, upon which had been erected a large build- 
ing that had been used as a public house. This building 
stood on the site of the residence afterwards occupied by 
John Dibert. Mrs. Linton died on April 2, 1835, at the age 
of 54 years. Her remains rest beside those of her husband 
in Grand View cemetery. Her house was the social centre 
of Johnstown for many years. She and her husband were 
Presbyterians in their religious belief. Mrs. Linton was the 
first person in Johnstown to use bituminous coal as a do- 
mestic fuel. She used it in a grate about 1822. 

John Linton was the father of six children, all of whom 
survived him and their mother. Their names were Mary, 
Robert Park, Jane, John, Eliza, and Louisa. Mary married 
John Matthews of Johnstown and died in 1855 at Fairfield, 
Iowa. Her husband, who did not long survive her, had 
but recently removed to Fairfield. When comparatively a 
young man Mr. Matthews was elected a member of the 
State Legislature from the district composed of Somerset 
and Cambria counties, and upon the opening of the western 
division of the Pennsylvania Canal in 1830 he was appoint- 
ed the first collector of tolls in Johnstown. Robert married 
Phoebe Levergood, daughter of Peter Levergood, the leading 
citizen of Johnstown. She died in 1842. Robert P. Linton 
died in March, 1879, after having filled the office of sheriff 
of Cambria county for three terms, being elected in 1831, 
1837, and 1858. His oldest son. Colonel John Park Linton, 
who died in 1892, was well known as a prominent citizen 
of the State as well as a lawyer and soldier. Jane mar- 
ried Joseph Chamberlain, a native of Vermont, who had 
been a resident of Johnstown for several years. He was 
a civil engineer by profession. He removed to Cleveland 
about 1846 and died in 1860 at his home in that city. 
While residing at Johnstown he served one term as one of 
two representatives of Somerset and Cambria counties in 
the Legislature. Eliza married Dr. Charles G. Phythian, a 
native of England but practicing his profession at Johns- 
town. He removed to Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1844, where 
his wife died in 1855. One of her children, Robert Lees, 



60 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

has distinguished himself as an officer in the United States 
Navy, attaining the high rank of commodore. Louisa mar- 
ried S. Moylan Fox, a native of Philadelphia and a gradu- 
ate of West Point. At the time of his marriage he was 
engaged as a civil engineer on the Portage Railroad. John, 
the last to be noticed of the children of John Linton and 
Ann Park, married Adelaide Henrietta Lacock, the young- 
est daughter of General Abner Lacock, of Beaver county, on 
September 1, 1831. 

John Linton, the second, after receiving a fair common- 
school education at Johnstown and Pittsburgh, entered the 
store of Silas Moore at Ebensburg as a clerk when he w^as 
about 16 years old, where he remained about two years, at 
the end of which time he engaged in business for himself 
at Johnstown, buying a stock of goods from Shepley and 
Thomas Priestley and opening a store on Main street. In 
a few years his old employer, Silas Moore, became a part- 
ner with him in his store, when the business was consider- 
ably enlarged and the store was removed to the southwest 
corner of Main and Franklin streets, now " the bank cor- 
ner." Mr. Moore's interest was soon afterwards purchased 
by Mr. Linton, who continued the business without a part- 
ner for several years, when a partnership w^as formed with 
his brother-in-law, Joseph Chamberlain, and the store was 
removed to the northeast corner of Main and Clinton 
streets, where a brick store-room was built by the firm. 
This building was destroyed by the Johnstown flood, at 
which time it was owned by Jacob Wild. This partnership 
was continued for many years. During its continuance the 
firm engaged in various contracts upon the public improve- 
ments then in progress in the western part of the State. 
We remember the sign of this firm, Linton & Chamberlain. 

About 184(3 John Linton was elected captain of the 
Conemaugh Guards, a volunteer military company, which 
he commanded until about the time of his removal from 
JohnstoW'U to Rochester, Beaver county, in 1853. This com- 
pany was organized as early as 1835, in W'hich year Gov- 
ernor Ritner, in accordance with the action of the company, 
commissioned Joseph Chamberlain as its captain. In 1849 
Captain Linton w'as elected inspector of the brigade to 



MAJOR JOHN LINTON. 61 

which his company was attached, which position conferred 
upon him the title of major, by which he was ever after- 
wards known. He served as brigade inspector for several 
years, and whether as Captain Linton or as Major Linton 
lie was always popular with officers and men. 

Political as well as military honors were early conferred 
upon John Linton. His first vote was cast against Andrew 
Jackson and he became one of the most active members 
of the Whig party of Cambria county. In October, 1842, 
he was chosen a Whig member of the lower branch of the 
Legislature from the district composed of Somerset and 
Cambria counties, wliich was entitled to two members. In 
tlie session of 1843, following his election, he secured the 
partition of the district and the erection of Cambria county 
into an independent district, entitled to one member. Al- 
though the county was Democratic so great was the popu- 
larity of John Linton that he was nevertheless re-elected 
to the Legislature in October, 1843, defeating David Somer- 
ville, the Democratic nominee. He was not again a candi- 
date for the Legislature for several years afterwards, but in 
1845 he was the Whig candidate for prothonotary, but was 
beaten by 31 votes, through the defection of a rival aspirant 
for the nomination. His successful competitor before the 
people was Joseph McDonald, the regular Democratic nomi- 
nee. In 1850 Dr. William A. Smith, of Ebensburg, repre- 
sented Cambria county in the lower branch of the Legisla- 
ture, and during the session of that year Cambria and Bed- 
ford counties were united in one legislative district, entitled 
to two members. At the election in the fall of that year 
Dr. Smith of Cambria and John Cessna of Bedford were 
the Democratic nominees and John Linton of Cambria and 
Samuel J. Castner of Bedford were the Whig nominees. 
Cessna and Linton were elected. In 1852 John Linton was 
ix Presidential elector oh the Whig State ticket, Winfield 
Scott and William A. Graham being the Whig candidates 
for President and Vice President. This was John Linton's 
last appearance as a candidate for any public office. 

In 1845 John Linton, having retired from the mercantile 
business, formed a partnership with William Huber and 
Jacob Myers for the manufacture of pig iron, and in that 



62 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

year the firm commenced the erection of Somerset furnace 
at Forwardstown, in Somerset county, a few miles from 
Johnstown. The furnace was put in blast in 1846 and in 
1847 Mr. Linton disposed of his interest in the enterprise 
and bought the interest of Peter Levergood in Mount Ver- 
non furnace at Johnstown, which had been built in 1845 
and 1846 and was the first furnace at Johnstown. John 
and Robert P. Linton and John Galbreath became the sole 
owners of the furnace, under the name of Lintons & Gal- 
breath. This firm was succeeded by Rhey, Matthews & Co. 

In 1849 John Linton formed a partnership with George 
Merriman, of Crawford county, and Colonel Thomas J. 
Power, of Beaver county, for the construction of one mile 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Johnstown. The work 
extended from a point just west of the dam in the Cone- 
maugh, near the eastern end of Conemaugh borough, to 
Cambria City, and was completed in 1850. It embraced 
the masonry for an iron bridge over the Conemaugh just 
west of Johnstown. In this year the firm agreed to build 
about three miles of the Pennsylvania Railroad immedi- 
ately east of the viaduct over the Conemaugh river east of 
Johnstown, and extending almost to the village of Summer- 
hill. On the completion of this work in 1853 the firm se- 
cured a contract for the construction of a bridge over the 
Beaver river and about two miles of roadbed below Roches- 
ter for the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Wheeling Railroad, 
and Major Linton's presence being required to superintend 
the work he removed his family to Rochester. The contract 
was completed in 1855. In this year George Merriman, 
John Linton, and others took a contract for the construction 
of eight miles of the Pittsburgh and Erie Railroad. Work 
on this contract was suspended in 1857, owing to the finan- 
cial difficulties of the railroad company. 

From 1857 until the beginning of the civil war in 1861 
Major Linton was not actively engaged in any business. 
In May, 1861, his old business associate, Colonel Power, who 
had been placed in charge of the Virginia railroads leading 
to Washington, sent for him to assist in rebuilding some of 
the lines which had been destroyed. He was commissioned 
major by the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron. In this 



MAJOR JOHN LINTON. 63 

service and in the construction for the Government of 
steamboat wharves on the Potomac at and opposite to 
Georgetown Major Linton was engaged until late in the 
year 1862, when he returned to Rochester. From this time 
until 1872 he was engaged in various enterprises, after 
which year he remained in retirement at Rochester. 

Major John Linton was born at Frankstown, Blair 
county, on May 12, 1809, and died at Rochester on Decem- 
ber 5, 1894, aged 85 years, six months, and a few days. 
His wife Adelaide was born at Beaver on June 12, 1808, 
and died at Rochester on November 1, 1895, aged 87 years, 
four months, and a few days. They rest in Beaver cemetery. 

Ann Park's brother, John Park, came to the wilds of 
Indiana county in 1795 with Colonel Johnston, who had 
become his stepfather. In 1798 John Park bought a tract 
of land on which the town of Marion now stands, and in 
1799 he erected a log cabin on the southwest corner of the 
town, the first house within its limits. Here he died in 
1844, at the age of 68 years. Mary Park, who married Nin- 
ian Cochran, removed to Johnstown about 1827, after the 
death of her husband. A daughter, Arabella, came to Johns- 
town with her mother and a few years afterwards married 
Selah* Chamberlain, a brother of Joseph Chamberlain, and 
she and her husband were for many years residents of 
Cleveland. When a young man Selah Chamberlain was a 
clerk in the store of Linton & Chamberlain. Mrs. Cochran 
died at Johnstown in 1834. A few years after the death of 
her husband. Colonel Johnston, the mother of the Park 
children went to Johnstown to live with her daughter, 
Mrs. Linton. Here she died on May 31, 1831, aged 82 years. 

In No. 2 of Vol. IV of The Pennsylvania Magazine of 
History and Biography (1880) appeared a sketch of General 
Lacock, prepared by the writer of this sketch. General 
Lacock, who was a native of Virginia, was frequently a 
member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, a Representative 
in Congress from Pennsylvania from 1811 to 1813, and a 
United States Senator from the same State from 1813 to 
1819, and held many other positions of honor and useful- 
ness, dying at his home near Freedom, Beaver county, on 
the 12th of April, 1837, in his 66th year. 



64 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

General Lacock is entitled to honorable mention in any 
detailed reference to the early history of Johnstown. After 
his term in the Senate had expired he took an active part 
in advocating the policy of uniting the Delaware and the 
Ohio by a State line of canals and railroads. From the 
sketch of his life above referred to we copy the following 
details : " On the 11th of April, 1825, five commissioners 
were appointed to make a complete survey of a route for 
the contemplated improvements, and General Lacock was 
one of these five, the others being John Sergeant, William 
Darlington, David Scott, and Robert M. Patterson. General 
Lacock's commission, signed by Governor J. Andrew Shulze, 
was dated May 16, 1825. On the 25th of February, 1826, 
the Legislature authorized the commencement of work on 
the canal and appropriated $300,000 for its prosecution. 
General Lacock, who was a member of the board of Canal 
Commissioners, was appointed by the board the acting 
commissioner to supervise the construction of the western 
division of the canal from Pittsburgh to Johnstown. Mainly 
under his direction this portion of the canal was subse- 
quently built. The first canal boat built or run west of 
the Allegheny mountains was named the General Ahner La- 
cock. It was a freight and passenger packet and was 'built 
at Apollo, then Warren, in Armstrong county, about 1827, 
by Philip Dally, under the auspices of Patrick Leonard, of 
Pittsburgh." 




THE BUILDING OF THE CAMBRIA IRON WORKS. 65 



THE BUILDING OF THE CAMBRIA IRON WORKS. 



FROM THE BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL 
ASSOCIATION, AUGUST 1, 1888. 



In 1833 George S. King, a merchant of Mercersburg, 
Franklin count}'-, then 24 years old, came to Johnstown, 
having heard that it presented opportunities for business 
that were worthy of his attention. When he saw the town 
and listened to the sound of the saw and the hammer on 
every hand he at once concluded that he had been wisely 
advised and promptly opened a store on Main street. In 
this and other mercantile enterprises at Johnstown he was 
very successful during the next few years. 

In 1839 and 1840, impressed with the necessity of de- 
veloping the manufacture of pig iron at or near Johns- 
town, Mr. King diligently searched for iron ore in its neigh- 
boring hills and found it in such quantities and of such 
satisfactory quality as to encourage him to embark in the 
business of making pig iron. In 1840 or 1841, at Ross fur- 
nace, in Westmoreland county, he tested the ore that he 
had found in the hills near Laurel run, a few miles below 
Johnstown. In 1841 Cambria furnace was built on Laurel 
run by George S. King, David Stewart, John K. Shryock, 
and William L. Shryock. It was successful from the start. 
It was soon followed by five other furnaces in Cambria 
county, as follows : Mill Creek, built by John Bell & Co. in 
1845 ; Ben's Creek, built by George S. King & Co. in 1846 ; 
Eliza, five miles west of Ebensburg, on Blacklick creek, 
commenced by Ritter & Rodgers in 1846 and completed by 
Ritter & Irvin in 1847 ; Mount Vernon, at Johnstown, built 
by Peter Levergood & Co. in 1846 and subsequently owned 
by Lintons & Galbreath and Rhey, Matthews & Co. ; and 
Ashland, six miles north of Gallitzin, built by Joseph A. 
Conrad and Hugh McNeal in 1847. All these furnaces 
have long been abandoned. All used charcoal. The divid- 



66 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

ing line between Cambria and Indiana counties passed 
through the stack of Eliza furnace. 

Having established the pig iron industry in Cambria 
county Mr. King turned his attention to the conversion into 
iron rails of the pig iron that was made at the furnaces 
near Johnstown or that might be made at new furnaces. 
The building of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was com- 
pleted to Pittsburgh in 1852, convinced Mr. King that the 
road itself would furnish a market for a large part of the 
product of a rail mill if one were built at Johnstown. 
The rail mill that was then nearest to Johnstown was at 
Brady's Bend, in Armstrong county. Rails were not then 
made at Pittsburgh. In 1852, therefore, Mr. King visited 
New York and Boston to explain to capitalists in those 
cities his scheme for building a rail rolling mill at Johns- 
town. In the following letter, written at our request, Mr. 
King gives the details of his eventually successful but al- 
ways laborious and often disappointing efforts to establish 
the Cambria Iron Works. Mr. King writes us as follows : 



Your letter of May 26tli and accompanying copy of your 
work, Iron in All Ages, are at hand, all of which are of 
much interest and value to me and for which I thank you. 

In respect to your request that I give you a history 
of the origin of the Cambria Iron Works, at Johnstown, 
I will state that in my effort to do so, for the reason that 
I am without access to books and memoranda, I can not 
give dates or enter into the matter as specifically as I would 
like to do. To properly get at the facts I will go back to 
my first identification with the iron business, my interest 
in which finally led to the location and first erection of 
the Cambria Iron Works, for many years the largest and 
still one of the most extensive works of their kind in 
the United States. 

Owing to the depressed condition of all business, in con- 
sequence of the adoption of the compromise tariff of 1833, 
a great many of the people being out of employment, as 
well as myself, I concluded that a means might be found 
to somewhat change this condition through the iron ore 
deposits in the hills around Johnstown. After a search of 



THE BUILDING OF THE CAMBRIA IRON WORKS. 67 

several months I found, in 1839 or 1840, a dei)Osit of ore, 
and thought it sufficient to justify the erection of a furnace 
to work it. For the reason that there was but little or no 
money in circulation my idea was to take the iron out of 
the ore and trade it for merchandise with which to pay 
the workingmen and enable them to live. 

In the first undertaking I associated with me David 
Stewart and John K. and Wm. L. Shryock, and I gave the 
name " Cambria " to our furnace, which we built on Laurel 
run, about three miles from Johnstown. This being before 
the day of stone coal for furnace use we used charcoal for 
fuel. Our first iron was made in 1841. About the latter 
part of 1843 Dr. Peter Shoenberger, of Pittsburgh, purchas- 
ed the interest of David Stewart, and in 1844 Dr. Shoen- 
berger and myself purchased the interest of John K. and 
Wm. L. Shryock, thereby becoming equal owners of Cam- 
bria furnace. We sold our pig iron at Pittsburgh. 

The tariff of 1842 now being in force and effective, as 
it better protected the industries of the United States, better 
times resulted and they justified operators in going into 
new enterprises and increasing their business. Dr. Shoen- 
berger and I concluded to take advantage of the change, 
and we built two more new furnaces, Mill Creek and Ben's 
Creek furnaces, situated about four miles from Johnstown 
in an opposite direction from Cambria furnace. In these 
enterprises John Bell was associated with us, remaining so 
for one or two years, when Dr. Shoenberger and I purchased 
his interest. 

By this time the tariif of 1846 went into operation and 
it greatly depressed all business, checking enterprise and 
breaking up much of the iron manufacturing then done in 
this country. David Stewart, who was formerly associated 
with me, taking advantage of the recent good times, had 
built Blacklick furnace, situated about eight miles northwest 
of Johnstown, in Indiana county. Because of the reduc- 
tions in duties in the tariff of 1846 Mr. Stewart, like many 
others, became dissatisfied with the result of his enter- 
prise, and came to us, offering to dispose of it to us, and 
we purchased it. 

We then had four furnaces which we kept alive and in 



68 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

operation during depressed times for some years, and that, 
too, with little or no profit to us. In this situation it be- 
came a question as to wliat move we could make in order 
to perpetuate the business we had engaged in. Dr. Shoen- 
berger advocated the erection of a large foundry, to put 
our iron into the shape of castings, such as large sugar 
kettles for the New Orleans market, these and other cast- 
ings then seeming most in demand. 

I advocated the erection of a rolling mill to manufacture 
railroad iron. Our iron was not adapted for bar iron pur- 
poses, and in my opinion was not good for castings, as it 
was too hard, though in a wrought form I was satisfied that 
it was good for railroad iron if properly worked, and the 
result of a trial demonstrated that I was right in this opin- 
ion. Finally we agreed upon an effort being made in the 
direction of organizing a company to erect a rolling mill for 
the manufacture of railroad iron. 

I think that it was in February, 1852, when I left Johns- 
town to go East to get parties to become interested in the 
new enterprise. I went first to New York City, and being 
unacquainted with any one there I was placed at a disad- 
vantage. Among those I could hear of as being most likely 
to invest in the enterprise was Simeon Draper, a broker, 
and whom I had heard of quite often. When I called at 
his office I found him absent, but I presented the matter to 
his chief business man, George W. Hodges. 

Finding but little encouragement in New York I con- 
cluded to go to Boston. My first efforts in Boston were not 
flattering and resulted in my discovering the fountain-head 
of a concern that I knew something about before. I was 
taken by a party to the office of an alleged large and 
wealthy " iron company," and found the office grandly fitted 
up and well equipped with advertising material, consisting 
of pamphlets, circulars, etc., one of which was handed to 
me. It set forth that this " iron company " represented a 
capital of $500,000 and their works were said to be located 
near Hollidaysburg, Blair county, where they owned two 
hundred acres of land and a furnace under construction. I 
was aware before this that an attempt had been made to 
build a furnace as mentioned in the pamphlet, and knew 



THE BUILDING OF THE CAMBRIA IRON WORKS. 69 

all about the matter so well that I got out of that office as 
soon as possible. I said nothing to them about my matter, 
nor did I tell them what I knew about theirs. 

I next met a party, Mr. Daniel AVilde, to whom I talked 
about the object I had in view. He called on me at the- 
hotel and we had our second talk, and he proposed that we 
go and see Mr. John Hartshorn, a broker. We went to his 
office, I taking with me a schedule of the property Dr. Sho- 
enberger and I intended to put into the business. We saw 
Mr. Hartshorn and acquainted him with the matter, I lay- 
ing before him our proposition, which was that Dr. Shoen- 
berger and I should put in our four furnaces, with tools,, 
teams, all the firm's property, except goods in stores and 
metal on hand, and twenty- five thousand acres of land, all 
valued at $300,000, of which we would retain shares in stock 
to the amount of $100,000 and the rest to be paid to us by 
the company. Mr. Hartshorn and Mr. Wilde agreed to get 
up the company within six months' time from date. I 
then wrote to Dr. Shoenberger to come on to Boston, and 
on his reaching there he and I signed the articles of agree- 
ment as above stated. 

Upon me was placed the duty of procuring the charter,, 
and to effect this as soon as possible I went to Harrisburg. 
In our conversations no mention was made of the name of 
the company to be organized and the works to be built. 
Of my own choice and without consulting with Dr. Shoen- 
berger or others I gave the names "Cambria Iron Company"" 
and " Cambria Iron Works." Our capital was placed at 
$1,000,000 and the works were to be located at Johnstown. 

When procuring the charter I found a general law exist- 
ing that limited the quantity of land to be held by such 
an organization in one county, and our land not lying in 
accordance with this provision I went to the Legislature, 
then in session, and procured the enactment of an additional 
section to the original law, permitting the holding of lands 
in more than one county without limit as to quantity. 
This accomplished and the charter secured I next went to 
Philadelphia and succeeded in procuring subscriptions of 
about $30,000 in stock on the part of some merchants 
with whom I had business relations. 



70 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

At the expiration of six months our Boston parties had 
not succeeded as expected and were granted a limit of six 
months longer to effect their purposes. They transferred 
their efforts to New York and called on Simeon Draper, 
whom I had tried to enlist in the matter before I went to 
Boston. Mr. Draper became a subscriber to the stock and 
vouched for other subscribers to the amount of $300,000. 
We then held a meeting to organize the company, resulting 
as follows : Dr. Peter Shoenberger, president ; Simeon Draper, 
treasurer ; George W. Hodges, secretary ; and myself, general 
manager. About this time a change was made in the 
amount of stock shares to be retained by Dr. Shoenberger 
and myself, we taking $200,000, instead of $100,000, as first 
agreed upon, leaving $100,000 to be paid to us in money 
by the company. 

I had before this time conditionally contracted with 
parties in Johnstown for land which I thought most con- 
venient and best adapted for locating the works, and the 
company now being organized I immediately secured it and 
began to erect the rolling mill, four hot-blast coke furna- 
ces, and other buildings, also grading for a coke yard, etc. 
This was in February, 1853, just one year after I went to 
New York and Boston to get up the company. 

I have herein given you a brief history of the Cambria 
Iron Company from its origin up to the first work done in 
the erection of the works, which I think will cover your re- 
quest as contained in your letter. Very respectfully yours, 

George S. King. 

Lewistown, Fulton County, Illinois, June 14, 1888. 

George Shryock King was born at Hagerstown, Maryland, on October 
28, 1809, and died at Johnstown on December 8, 1903, aged over 94 years. 




HON. DANIEL JOHNSON MORRELL. 71 



HON. DANIEL JOHNSON MORRELL. 



FROM THE BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL 
ASSOCIATION, AUGUST 26, 1885. 



Hon. Daniel J. Morrell died at his home in Johns- 
town on Thursday morning, August 20, 1885, at the age of 
64 years and twelve days. Daniel Johnson Morrell was 
a descendant of one of three brothers who in early colo- 
nial days emigrated from Old England to New England. 
From these three brothers there probably descended all the 
Morrells and Morrills in the United States to-day. David 
Morrell, grandfather of Daniel J. Morrell, made his home in 
Maine considerably over a century ago, and here, in a set- 
tlement of Friends, or Quakers, in the town, or township, of 
Berwick and county of York, was born, one hundred and 
two years ago, on the farm on which he died eleven years 
ago, Thaddeus Morrell, When about twenty-three years old 
he married a neighbor's daughter, Susannah Ayres. They 
were married on February 17, 1806, and were buried on 
the same day, June 10, 1874. Ten children were given to 
this Quaker couple, of whom eight grew to manhood and 
womanhood. Daniel was the seventh child. He was born 
on the farm on August 8, 1821. 

The childhood and youth of Mr. Morrell were attended 
by such vicissitudes as are experienced by most boys whose 
lot has been cast in pioneer homes. His immediate ances- 
tors were true pioneers, whose scanty fortunes had been 
carved from primeval forests and gleaned from the virgin 
soil amid many hardships and at the risk of life itself. 
His father's family wore homespun, woven from threads of 
flax and wool which had made acquaintance with the fam- 
ily spinning-wheel. When old enough Daniel was taught to 
assist in the labors of the farm, and when the winter school 
was in session he was a regular attendant. But the entire 
time spent by him in the school-room did not exceed two 



72 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

years. The education thus acquired was, of course, limit- 
ed to the most elementary studies. The only additional 
schooling he ever received was obtained in a course of 
study at a commercial college after his entrance upon a 
business life. His religious training was such as prevails 
among the Friends. 

Those citizens of York county who were not engaged 
in farming sixty-odd years ago found profitable and needed 
employment in some form of manufacturing industry. If 
they did not make iron the first settlers of York county 
did make it. During the Revolution the colonists had great 
difficulty in procuring iron, and extraordinary efforts were 
made to supply the want. Many Catalan forges were erect- 
ed, by means of which malleable iron was obtained directly 
from the ore by a single fusion. One of these forges stood 
two miles from the farm of David Morrell, and from the 
farm itself was taken the ore from which the iron was 
made. The grandmother of the boy Daniel used to delight 
to tell him how the iron was made by the Catalan process 
in the forge that had long been abandoned. Years after- 
wards, in a distant State, he successfully embarked in the 
manufacture of iron and steel on the largest scale and by 
the most improved modern processes. 

In 1837, when in his sixteenth year, Mr. Morrell left 
home and went to Philadelphia, to which city his older 
brother David had preceded him. David was engaged in 
the wholesale dry-goods trade as a member of the firm of 
Trotter, Morrell & Co., which occupied the building now 
designated as No. 32 North Fourth street. With this firm 
Mr. Morrell was employed as a clerk for five years, until 
1842, when the firm was dissolved and he embarked in the 
same business for himself, in the same building, his brother 
David being associated with him. The business of this firm 
was conducted with energy, but with some eccentricity on 
the part of David, the older brother, which finally led to 
its dissolution. In 1845 Mr. Morrell joined Oliver Martin, a 
dealer in fancy dry goods, at No. 28 North Fourth street^ 
first as a clerk and afterwards as a partner, the firm name 
being Martin, Morrell & Co. In 1854 Mr. Martin died and 
Mr. Morrell became executor of his estate. Notwithstanding 



HON. DANIEL JOHNSON MORRELL. 73 

the death of Mr. Martin the business of the firm continued, 
and Mr. Morrell's duties kept him constantly engaged until 
1855, when his mercantile career ended. He retired with a 
small capital to assume the management of the Cambria 
Iron Works, at Johnstown, which had been established in 
1853 for the manufacture of iron rails, and which in 1855 
passed into the hands of Wood, Morrell & Co. as lessees. 
This position he retained for nearly twenty-nine years, until 
January, 1884, when failing health obliged him to retire 
from all active business. 

Down to 1871 the product of the Cambria Iron Works 
was iron rails solely, in the manufacture of which they 
had acquired an excellent reputation, but long prior to this 
year the time had arrived when it became apparent that 
rails rolled from steel made by the Bessemer process must 
ultimately displace those made of iron, on account of their 
greater durability. Mr. Morrell early perceived the coming 
revolution, and it was largely through his efforts and per- 
sistence that the directors of his company were among the 
first in this country to enter upon the business of manu- 
facturing Bessemer rails. The company commenced their 
manufacture on July 12, 1871. 

During the early part of his mercantile career Mr. Mor- 
rell frequently visited the Western and Southern States as 
a collector, and in this way he obtained a knowledge of 
the extent and resources of the country which he could not 
otherwise have acquired. He was a regular attendant for 
several years upon the lectures of the Franklin Institute, 
and the time thus spent in a scientific atmosphere was most 
profitably employed. Attaching himself to the Whig party 
he became an ardent admirer of its great leader, Henry 
Clay, and from his speeches he obtained a knowledge of 
the policy of governmental protection to American indus- 
tries, of which policy he subsequently became one of the 
most prominent exponents in tlie country. 

Since 1855 Mr. Morrell had resided continuously in 
Johnstown and taken an active interest in its growth and 
prosperity. He might have kept himself aloof from its 
people and manifested no interest in their welfare, but he 
chose to regard himself as one of their number and to throw 



74 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

his influence in the scale in behalf of local improvements- 
and an enlarged public spirit. During the Rebellion he 
greatly aided the cause of the country by encouraging 
the enlistment of volunteers. Almost every able-bodied em- 
ploye at the Cambria Iron Works was at some period of 
the war an enlisted Union soldier. When the war closed 
his great ability, his patriotism, his intelligent and influ- 
ential advocacy of the protective policy, and his many 
sterling qualities of head and heart were recognized by 
the people of the Congressional district in which he resid- 
ed, who twice elected him their Representative in Congress 
— first in 1866 by a majority of 1,219 and again in 1868 
by a majority of 1,094. In 1870 he was a candidate for 
re-election, but was beaten by 11 votes through the defec- 
tion of a faction of the Republican party in Huntingdon 
county. 

In his first speech in Congress Mr. Morrell uttered the 
following plea for labor : " The American workingman 
must live in a house, not a hut; he must wear decent 
clothes and eat wholesome and nourishing food. He is an 
integral part of the municipality, the State, and the Nation; 
subject to no fetters of class or caste ; neither pauper, nor 
peasant, nor serf, but a free American citizen. He has the 
ballot, and if it were possible it would be dangerous to 
degrade him. The country stands pledged to give him 
education, political power, and a higher form of life than 
foreign nations accord their laborers, and he must be sus- 
tained by higher rates of wages than those of Europe. 
Our industries operated by American citizens must be freed 
from foreign interference and organized into a distinct 
American system, which will exact some temporary sacri- 
fices but result in general prosperity and true national in- 
dependence. In maintaining diversified industries we util- 
ize every talent, provide a field for every capacity, and 
bind together the whole people in mutual dependence and 
support, assuring the strength and security of our Repub- 
lic." No better definition of the protective policy of this 
country was ever written. 

Upon the organization of the first . Congress to which 
Mr. Morrell was elected, the Fortieth, he was made chair- 



HON. DANIEL JOHNSON MORRELL, 75 

man of the standing committee on manufactures and a 
member of the standing committee on freedmen's affairs. 
He retained his chairmanship of the committee on manu- 
factures during the Forty-first Congress, and was also a 
member of the standing committee on the Pacific Railroad 
and of the select committee on the decline of American 
commerce. The feature, however, of his Congressional career 
with which his name will longest be associated is his intro- 
duction on the 9th of March, 1870, of a bill to provide for 
the celebration at Philadelphia of the hundredth anniver- 
sary of American Independence. This bill became a law 
largely through his persistent advocacy of its propriety and 
justice, and through the happy effect produced on Congress 
and the country by his admirably conceived speech of the 
14th of December, 1870, in favor of its passage. Upon the 
organization of the Centennial Commission provided for 
in the act of Congress the services of Mr. Morrell in se- 
curing its creation, and his superior business and executive 
qualifications, were recognized by his selection as chair- 
man of the executive committee of the commission. 

In January, 1878, Mr. Morrell was appointed by President 
Hayes a commissioner to the Paris Exposition. On Tuesday 
evening. May 7, 1878, he was tendered a farewell dinner 
at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia by leading citizens 
of the State, including Governor John F. Hartranft, Mayor 
William S. Stokley, Hon. Morton McMichael, General Robert 
Patterson, Thomas A. Scott, Henry C. Carey, A. J. Drexel, 
A. E. Borie, and many others almost equally distinguished. 
Over one hundred gentlemen sat down to the dinner, which 
was tendered him " as a complimentary testimonial on the 
eve of his departure to Europe as a Commissioner from the 
United States to the International Industrial Exposition at 
Paris, and in recognition of the services rendered by him to 
the Centennial Exhibition while he was a member of Con- 
gress, and afterwards while filling the arduous and responsi- 
ble position of chairman of the executive committee of the 
Centennial Commission during the whole period of its ex- 
istence." Governor Hartranft presided at the dinner. On 
May 9, 1878, Mr. Morrell sailed for Europe, returning on the 
14th of October, 1878. 



76 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

On the 6th of March, 1879, Mr. Morrell was elected pres- 
ident of the American Iron and Steel Association. He re- 
signed this office on December 15, 1884, his resignation being 
accepted and his successor chosen on January 6, 1885. His 
official retirement from the management of the Cambria 
Iron Works took place on January 15, 1884, owing to ill- 
health, as we have already stated. 

In 1845 Mr. Morrell married Susan Lower, daughter 
of Powell Stackhouse, a member of the Society of Friends. 
His wife and a daughter survive him.* The latter is the 
wife of Captain Philip E. Chapin, the general manager of 
the Cambria Iron Works. Mr. Morrell was never blessed 
with any other children. 

The funeral of Mr. Morrell took place on Monday, Au- 
gust 24, and was attended by an immense concourse of his 
old neighbors and employes. Many friends from a distance 
were also present. He was buried at Johnstown, amid the 
scenes of his industrial triumphs and among a people who 
loved him and will miss him. 

*Mrs. Morrell died at her home in Johnstown on June 7, 1887. 
Her daughter, Mrs. Chapin, died in Paris, France, on March 2, 1909. 




MAJOR GEORGE NELSON SMITH. 77 



MAJOR GEORGE NELSON SMITH. 



FROM THE JOHNSTOWN DAILY TRIBUNE OF SATURDAY, 
JANUARY 3, 1891. 



Died, at his residence, No. 2231 Madison Square, Phila- 
delphia, on Monday, December 29, 1890, Major George Nel- 
son Smith, aged 82 years, 6 months, and 10 days. 

George Nelson Smith was born at Youngstown, West- 
moreland county, on June 19, 1808. His father's name was 
William Smith and his mother's maiden name was Agnes 
Nelson. They were natives respectively of the State of 
Delaware and of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and resid- 
ed, about the beginning of the century, at Elizabethtown, 
Lancaster county, whence they emigrated to Bedford coun- 
ty and thence to Westmoreland county. Both came of good 
fighting stock, William Smith's father being at the battles 
of Brandywine and Germantown and Agnes Nelson's father 
losing his life from exposure while at Valley Forge. 

The father of Major Smith was by trade a cooper, and 
some years after George was born he went to work mak- 
ing barrels for the salt-makers on the Conemaugh and Kis- 
kiminitas rivers, continuing that occupation for many years. 
By a sort of evolution George became a keel-boatman on the 
rivers mentioned and on the Allegheny river, the keel boats 
taking salt to Pittsburgh. He was a natural waterman, a 
good swimmer, and fond of the excitement and the dangers 
of a keel-boatman's life. When the western division of the 
Pennsylvania Canal was but partly built he left the keel 
boat for the canal boat, and he enjoyed the honor of having 
steered the first boat that ran on that division, the General 
Ahner Lcwock. This was between Warren, now Apollo, and 
Leechburg in 1829. Entering the service of D. Leech & Co. 
he became the captain of one of their first packet-boats, the 
Pioneer. Subsequently he had some experience in organiz- 
ing the company's line on the eastern division of the canal. 



ib CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

When in command of the Pioneer an incident occurred 
whicli marked a heroic trait of his character. While his 
boat was spinning along in one of the pools, or dams, of 
the Kiskiminitas, in 1834, one of the passengers, Mrs. Lovell, 
the wife of a New Orleans merchant, who also was a pas- 
senger, fell overboard. Captain Smith was sitting at an 
open window at the time. As quick as thought he jump- 
ed through the window into the water, and before the boat 
could be stopped he had safely landed Mrs. Lovell on the 
bank. This incident has a sequel, as we shall presently see. 

Ill the following year, 1835, Captain Smith and some 
friends concluded to go West. Taking passage on an Ohio 
river steamboat they reached Louisville in due time, where 
the}^ were detained. Here another incident occurred which 
illustrates again the nobility of Captain Smith's character. 
Walking along the levee he noticed a woman who was sur- 
rounded by two or three little children and a few house- 
hold goods and was in great distress. Inquiry revealed the 
fact that her husband had been killed in a Louisville fac- 
tory and that she was anxious to return to her home at 
Pittsburgh, but her funds were wholly inadequate to meet 
the necessary steamboat charges. Captain Smith at once 
paid her steamboat fare and that of her children to Pitts- 
burgh, and also paid the steward of the boat for their 
entertainment until their destination should be reached. 

But this act of generosity emptied Captain Smith's al- 
ways lean purse. Abandoning his companions he shipped 
as a deck hand on a steamboat that was going to New Or- 
leans, at which place he safely arrived. Here he renewed 
his acquaintance with Mr. Lovell, who gave him a letter of 
introduction to David G. Burnet, one of the leaders of the 
struggling Texan Republic, Captain Smith's adventurous 
spirit and his manly sympathies combining to direct his 
steps toward the Lone Star State. Arriving in Texas he 
enlisted as a soldier in the Texan army, and at the battle 
of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, he had the pleasure of 
contributing to the defeat of the Mexican army and of par- 
ticipating in the capture of Santa Anna himself. For his 
services in the Texan Revolution he was afterwards granted 
a large tract of land in Texas, but he did not derive any 



MAJOR GEORGE NELSON SMITH. 79 

benefit from this donation, owing to the undeveloped con- 
dition of the country. 

Leaving Texas in 1836 or 1837 Captain Smith was in- 
duced by friends to locate in Kentucky and he became a 
•contractor in the building of the Louisville and Nashville 
Turnpike. While thus engaged he married Miss Rebecca 
G. Mudd, of Green county, Kentucky. This was in 1839. 
Soon afterwards he concluded to return to Pennsylvania, 
and in 1840, through the kind offices of one of his early 
friends, Captain Samuel D. Karns, he was appointed to a 
clerkship in the office of the collector of tolls on the Penn- 
sylvania Canal at Johnstown, the collector. Major James 
Potts, being a brother-in-law of Captain Karns. Captain 
Smith was at this time a good penman and a good ac- 
■countant, although he had received a very imperfect edu- 
cation when a boy. Thenceforward until 1861 he was an 
active and influential citizen of Johnstown. It was not 
born in him to be quiet anywhere, or to be a laggard in 
matters of public interest. He was a born leader of men 
and not a follower. 

After Major Potts retired from the position of collector 
of tolls in 1842, if not, indeed, before this event, Captain 
Smith's old love of the water returned, and he successively 
became the owner and captain of two portable boats on the 
main line of the Pennsylvania Canal and its railroad con- 
nections, named the Excelsior and the San Jacinto. Dr. 
Campbell Sheridan can tell some interesting stories about 
the Excelsim-. But, like all of Captain Smith's business en- 
terprises, he made but little money out of his boating ven- 
tures, and in 1846, when the Mexican war broke out, we 
find him attached as a sutler's clerk to the First Regiment 
of Pennsylvania Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Samuel 
W. Black, Captain Samuel D. Karns being the sutler. We 
may be sure that it was through no fear of personal harm 
that Captain Smith did not occupy a different position in 
the regiment. He remained in Mexico with General Scott's 
army until the war closed, often exposed to danger and 
often participating in movements against the enemy. In a 
skirmishing expedition he was wounded in the left leg, 
and thereafter he walked with a sliglit limp. 



80 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEEES. 

After returning to Johnstown late in 1847 or early in 
1848 Captain Smith was for a time the manager of Ben's 
Creek furnace, near Johnstown, immediately preceding, we 
think, that accomplished gentleman, William C. McCormick. 
This position he held for only a short time. Our recollection 
is that he next embarked on an active political career by 
assuming the editorship and the publication of the Demo- 
cratic paper at Johnstown which had previously been pub- 
lished by Henry C. Devine and was called The Cambria 
Transcript. It was late in 1849 when Captain Smith took 
charge of this paper, the name of which he changed to The 
Mountain Echo. In the spring of 1853, after encountering 
some vicissitudes, a "new series" of the Echo appeared, the 
number of columns being enlarged and the name being also 
enlarged to The Allegheny 3Iountain Echo and Johnstown Com- 
mercial Advertiser and Intelligencer. In the meantime Cap- 
tain Smith had been appointed cargo inspector at Johns- 
town and had become a Democratic leader and a man of 
mark among Democrats throughout the State. He could 
write a good editorial article on almost any subject ; he 
could make a very fair speech on almost any question ; he 
was a good vocalist and delighted to sing political and pa- 
triotic songs ; he was the author of at least one notable 
patriotic song ; he was a good fiddler ; he could tell a 
story ; he w^as good company anywhere ; and he was a man 
of fine appearance. His physical and moral courage were 
well known, and his generous and chivalrous nature was 
just as well known. 

After awhile, in October, 1856, while still editing the 
Echo, Captain Smith was elected by the Democrats to the 
lower house of the Pennsylvania Legislature and was con- 
secutively elected a second and third time to the same 
body. In the winter of 1856 and 1857 he joined with other 
Democrats in refusing to vote for John W. Forney, the 
Democratic caucus nominee for United States Senator, and 
this action defeated that gentleman and resulted eventually 
in the election of Simon Cameron. Captain Smith and his 
associates, seven in all, voted for Henry D. Foster. They 
refused to go into the caucus because President-elect Bu- 
chanan had written a letter virtually dictating Colonel For- 



MAJOR GEORGE NELSON SMITH. 81 

ney's nomination. During his last term in the Legislature 
Captain Smith's popularity with his fellow-Democrats was 
shown in his election as Speaker pro tern., to fill a vacancy 
caused by the ill-health of the regular Speaker. At the 
close of the session he was presented with a silver tea-set. 
Engraved upon the pitcher there was the following inscrip- 
tion : " George N. Smith, of Cambria County, elected unani- 
mously Speaker pro tern., House of Representatives of Penn- 
sylvania, Session of 1858." 

In 1860 Captain Smith, who was still editing the Echo, 
was selected as a delegate to the Charleston Convention of 
that year. He went to Charleston as a friend of John C. 
Breckinridge and supported his nomination for the Presi- 
dency until he became satisfied that the friends of Breckin- 
ridge were bent upon disunion, when he joined the forces 
of Stephen A. Douglas. It will be remembered that the 
convention broke in two at Charleston and that the two 
wdngs afterwards met separately at Baltimore, each wing 
nominating its favorite. Captain Smith attended the Doug- 
las Convention as a delegate and voted for him. The an- 
nexed correspondence will be read with interest. 

Barnum's Hotel, Baltimore, June 26, 1860. 
Hon. John C. Breckinridge. My Dear Friend : I trust in God you 
will not suffer the evil ad\dce of designing men to cause you to pursue 
a course that will destroy the party and ruin yourself. Should you ac- 
cept the nomination of the Seceders' Convention it will be fatal to the 
party and ruinous to you. I beseech you to consider well the step you 
are about to take. Evil must assuredly follow acceptance. Your Sincere 
Friend, G. Nelson Smith. 

Washington City, June 28, 1860. 
G. Nelson Smith, Esq., Johnstown, Pa. My Dear Sir: I have your 
letter and appreciate the motives that dictated it. My course has been 
surrounded by difficulties for which I was wholly blameless. We must 
each pursue what seems to be the path of duty. Let it not disturb the 
personal friendship I am happy to cherish for you. AVith good wishes, 
I remain Your Friend, John C. Breckinridge. 

The break-up at Charleston extended to the Democratic 
party of the whole country, and the Cambria county Demo- 
crats at once took sides with either Breckinridge or Doug- 
las. In the fall of 1860 there were four candidates for the 
General Assembly, the Republicans nominating Alexander 
C. Mullin, the Breckinridge Democrats Michael Dan Mage- 



82 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

han, the Douglas Democrats Captain Smith, and the New 
County party Major James Potts. MuUiri was elected. 

The split in the Democratic party did not extend to 
the State politics of Pennsylvania. Henry D. Foster was 
the Democratic nominee for Governor but was defeated by 
Andrew G. Curtin. Captain Smith presided over the conven- 
tion which nominated his old friend, General Foster. This 
was his last appearance in the Democratic politics of Penn- 
sylvania. The war came soon afterwards, justifying his 
judgment of the purposes of the Southern Democrats at 
Charleston. It brought changes in the political as well as 
personal relations of Captain Smith and other Democrats. 

Soon after the close of the political campaign of 1860 
Oaptain Smith's old friend, Samuel D. Karns, invited him 
to engage with him in an oil speculation in West Virginia. 
In April, 1861, after the firing on Fort Sumter, the West 
Virginia Confederates drove them out of the State. 

Returning to Johnstown Captain Smith closed the Echo 
office and sought a position with the Union army. He was 
an intense lover of his country and its flag and his patri- 
otic ardor would not permit him to remain in quiet Johns- 
town when that flag was insulted. His lameness prevented 
him from enlisting as a soldier in its defense, but he was 
appointed quartermaster of the second brigade of Fitz John 
Porter's division, serving in this capacity, with the rank of 
captain, until 1862, when he was appointed an assistant pay- 
master in the army with the rank of major, in which posi- 
tion he served until the close of the war in 1865, being all 
the time attached to the Army of the Potomac. His two 
oldest sons, Robert Emmet and Montgomery Pike, were pri- 
vate soldiers in the same army. Montgomery was wounded 
in the last day's fighting in front of Petersburg, dying in 
1870, his wound contributing to his death. 

If Major Smith had now gone back to Johnstown among 
his old friends he would have done wisely, but he had part- 
ed with the Echo at the breaking out of the Rebellion and 
moved his family to Baltimore in 1864 while still in the 
Government service, and when the war closed he felt that 
there was nothing to take him to Johnstown. This mistake 
he often regretted afterwards. In the spring of 1866 he 



MAJOR GEORGE NELSON SMITH, 83 

tried farming in Virginia, in the neighborhood of Wash- 
ington, but tliis experiment failing he sought and secured 
a clerkship in the custom house at Philadelphia, where he 
remained until 1869, removing his family to that city soon 
after his appointment, where he ever afterwards resided until 
his death. From 1869 forward Major Smith experienced 
nothing but bad luck. He tried many honorable ways of 
making a living, including several visits to Texas in the 
interest of various mining enterprises. For a number of 
years before his death he lived a life of retirement and al- 
most of seclusion, but still using his pen in many ways 
and never for one moment losing his interest in public 
affairs. In 1878 his wife died. 

Major Smith's mother was a devout Methodist and his 
father was a non-professor of religion. The major himself 
never, until about the time of his wife's death, appeared to 
take any interest in religious matters. Mrs. Smith was all 
her life a Roman Catholic and she reared her children in 
that faith. A short time before her death the major united 
with the same church, and ever afterwards he was one of 
its most faithful adherents and a regular attendant upon 
its services. Major Smith and his wife were the parents 
of eight children, all born at Johnstown, two of whom we 
have mentioned. 

The remains of our old friend were taken on Friday 
morning from his residence to the church of St. Charles 
Borromeo, at Twentieth and Christian streets, and thence to 
Georgetown, D. C, where they will find a last resting-place 
in Holy Rood cemetery. The remains of his wife will be 
taken to Georgetown and laid beside those of her husband. 

We have in the foregoing lines traced the career of a 
really remarkable man. Courage and generosity were the 
traits by which he was best known to the generation to 
which he belonged, but he had many other noble qualities. 
No truer friend ever lived and no more manly opponent. 
He was kind to those who most needed kindness, the poor 
and the lowly, and he spurned and contemned alike the 
insolence of power and the arrogance of wealth. He was 
an intense lover of his country. He was public spirited. 
He was a good friend to Johnstown in the days when his 



84 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

voice and vote could influence its destiny. He passed 
through the Legislature the bill incorporating the Johns- 
town Water and Gas Company and the bill dividing Johns- 
town into four wards. He was a charter member of the 
Johnstown Division of Sons of Temperance. 

Of liis generous and chivalrous nature we could give 
many illustrations in addition to those already mentioned. 
While president of the select council of Johnstown in 1858 
he was called upon one day to act as burgess and to im- 
pose fines upon two men for fighting. One man promptly 
paid his fine but the other man being impecunious Captain 
Smith paid his fine for him rather than send him to the 
lock-up. We personally know of two cases in Johnstown 
in which he saved the lives of drowning men by plung- 
ing into the water and risking his own life, once into the 
canal upon a night of pitchy darkness. One day, when 
the Pennsylvania Canal was in all its glory, some heart- 
less boatmen took from a boat which had just arrived at 
Johnstown a sick w^oman and her helpless children and 
placed the mother on a bench at one of the wharves. 
This poor woman was sick with Asiatic cholera. Captain 
Smith heard of what had been done, and after vainly en- 
deavoring to secure a lodging place for the sick woman 
he took her and her children to his own house, where she 
soon afterwards died. That other noble-hearted gentleman, 
William Orr, the undertaker, and two good women properly 
cared for her remains and she was decently buried. The 
children were restored to their father. 




DR. WILLIAM ANTHONY SMITH. 85 



DR. WILLIAM ANTHONY SMITH. 



FROM THE JOHNSTOWN DAILY TRIBUNE OF TUESDAY, 
NOVEMBER 1, 1887. 



Dr. William A. Smith died at his residence in Phila- 
delphia on Sunday morning, October 30, 1887. 

Dr. Smith came of honored and even distinguished line- 
age. His great-grandfather, William Smith, D.D., a native 
of Aberdeen, in Scotland, was a clergyman of the Episcopal 
Church in Philadelphia before the Revolution and for many 
years afterwards. His prominence in the church and among 
the learned men of Philadelphia was such that he was ap- 
pointed the first provost of the University of Pennsylvania, 
a position which he filled most acceptably for many years. 
He married a Miss Moore, of the vicinity of Philadelphia, 
whose family was one of the most aristocratic and worthy 
in the Province of Pennsylvania. Their oldest son was 
William Moore Smith, who became distinguished as a 
Philadelphia lawyer and diplomat, having been sent by 
Washington on a protracted mission to England, the duties 
of which he discharged with tact and good judgment. His 
wife was a Miss Rudolph, a descendant of one of the 
early Swedish settlers on the Delaware. Their oldest son 
was General William Rudolph Smith, who married a Miss 
Anthony, of Philadelphia. These were the parents of Dr. 
AVilliam Anthony Smith. 

Provost William Smith was not only an eminent divine 
and a successful instructor of young men but he was also 
a shrewd man of affairs. He early foresaw the possibilities 
of Central and Western Pennsylvania, and patented many 
tracts of land in the Juniata valley and as far west as the 
territory now embraced in Cambria county. Among his 
acquisitions was the site of the town of Huntingdon, in 
Huntingdon county, which he surveyed into town lots in 
1767, naming the town after Lady Huntingdon, of Eng- 



86 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

land, who had been a Hberal patron of the University of 
Pennsylvania. To the town of Huntingdon General Wil- 
liam R. Smith came from Philadelphia early in the nine- 
teenth century to practice his profession as a lawyer, and 
here, on the 13th of November, 1809, was born his oldest 
child, William A. Smith. If William A. Smith had lived 
just two weeks longer he would have been 78 years old. 

When still a boy William A. Smith lost his mother by 
death and the Huntingdon home was temporarily broken 
up. He was sent to live with his grandmother in the vi- 
cinity of Philadelphia, and in the schools of that city and 
its neighborhood he received a good elementary education, 
which was subsequently completed at Huntingdon, after his- 
father's second marriage and the re-establishment of his 
home at that place. About the time William's literary and 
classical studies were completed his father removed to a 
farm in the vicinity of Bedford but continued to practice 
his profession in the courts of Huntingdon, Bedford, and 
Cambria counties until his removal to Wisconsin in 1838. 
William went with his father to the farm and for a short 
time helped to manage it. Before he was twenty years old, 
however, we find his love of books asserting itself and he 
became a medical student at the office of Dr. Watson, of 
Bedford. His medical studies were subsequently completed 
at the University of Pennsylvania, which conferred upon 
him the degree of doctor of medicine in 1832. 

Dr. Smith commenced the practice of his profession at 
Bedford, where he remained only a short time, thence going 
to Somerset, where he opened an office and remained until 
after the town was devastated by a great fire in the fall of 
1833, his own office being burned. From Somerset he re- 
moved to Ebensburg, Cambria county, where he at once en- 
tered upon an extensive practice, which he retained until 
his removal to Philadelj^hia in 1858, subject to occasional 
* interruptions, which will presently be explained. At Somerset 
Dr. Smith formed the acquaintance of Jeremiah S. Black, 
and a strong intimacy existed between the two men until 
the death of Judge Black a few years ago. The two young 
men roomed together at Somerset. 

In 1841 Dr. Smith was married to Miss Rebecca C. Bel- 



DR. WILLIAM ANTHONY SMITH. 8^ 

las, of Milton, Pa., a cousin of Mrs. Dr. Rodrigue, of Ebens- 
burg. Four sons were born to this union. In 1858 Dr. 
Smith removed with his family to Philadelphia, the home 
of his immediate ancestors, that he might give his children 
the advantages of a liberal education. To do this he tem- 
porarily abandoned the practice of his profession and be- 
came an inspector in the Philadelphia custom house. In 
1861 his wife died, and in 1862 he entered the Government 
service as an army surgeon, continuing in this position un- 
til 1866, when he was mustered out. Soon after entering 
the army he was captured at Savage Station, while serving 
under McClellan, but was soon afterwards released. His 
oldest son, William Bellas Smith, born in 1842, was emploj^- 
ed in the medical service during the war. He died and 
was buried at sea in 1866 while returning home from the 
Southwest, where he had for some time been stationed. He 
was a young man of particularly winning ways and of very 
bright promise. His father never recovered from this blow. 

Soon after retiring from the army Dr. Smith was ap- 
pointed to a responsible position in the office of the pro- 
thonotary of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania for the 
eastern district, which position he filled most creditably 
for about twenty years until attacked by his last illness. 

General William R. Smith was very prominent in the 
military affairs of the Juniata valley, and- his son, the doctor, 
inherited his military tastes. Soon after he settled in Ebens- 
burg he was chosen captain of the Cambria Guards. This 
office he held for ten years. Many old residents of Ebens- 
burg still refer to him as Captain Smith. He took great 
interest in the welfare of his company, and it was largely 
owing to his zeal and popularity as its commanding officer 
that it was ready with full ranks to go to Mexico in the 
spring of 1847. The doctor was himself, however, prevented 
from going with his men, but his interest in military mat- 
ters never suffered any abatement to the last year of his 
life. When his company returned to Ebensburg in 1848 
wdtli broken ranks he delivered an address of welcome. He 
was a sincere and ardent lover of his country, and her his- 
tory and achievements were to him a constant delight. 

If Dr. Smith w^as a born soldier he was also a born pol- 



88 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

itician of the better class. He was an ardent Democrat 
when he cast his first Presidential vote for Andrew Jackson 
in 1832, and he remained a Democrat all his days. He and 
his father were warm friends of Governor David R. Porter, 
who was their fellow citizen at Huntingdon, and soon after 
the Governor's first election in 1838 he appointed Dr. Smith 
to be prothonotary of Cambria county, succeeding Dr. David 
-T. Storm. Dr. Smith held this office for several years. He 
was an elegant penman, and he made a capable and oblig- 
ing court officer. 

In 1848 John Fenlon, a Whig, was elected to the lower 
branch of the State Legislature, defeating Colonel John 
Kane, a Democrat. In 1849 the Whigs again ran Mr. Fen- 
lon for the same office, but he was defeated by Dr. Smith, 
who accordingly served in the Legislature of 1850. In the 
fall of that year Dr. Smith was again the nominee of his 
party for the same office, but this time he was himself de- 
feated by John Linton, Whig. In 1854 the doctor was the 
Democratic candidate for the lower house of the Legislature, 
but was defeated by George S. King, the Whig candidate. 

During his residence in Ebensburg Dr. Smith was fre- 
quently chosen a delegate to State conventions and was 
otherwise honored by his party. He was, in fact, one of the 
leaders of the party as long as he remained a citizen of 
Cambria county. It was largely through his personal influ- 
ence that the new-county scheme was defeated at Harris- 
burg while Mr. King, its champion, was in the Legislature. 
He was always ready with a forcible speech in defense of 
the regular Democratic ticket. After his removal to Phila- 
delphia he maintained to the last his intimate personal re- 
lations with party leaders, who always respected his judg- 
ment and were often warmed by his enthusiasm. 

The foregoing are the leading facts in the long and 
useful life of one of the worthiest citizens Cambria county 
has ever had. They leave his character undescribed, and a 
man's character is, after all, the principal part of the man. 
He was always willing to extend any favor or courtesy that 
was in his power to grant. As a physician he answered 
many calls without hope of reward, and this often at much 
personal sacrifice in the bitter winters of Northern Cambria. 



DR. WILLIAM ANTHONY SMITH. 89 

His fidelity to his friends was a marked trait, and his at- 
tachment to Huntingdon, the home of his childhood, and 
to Ebensburg was pathetic in its tenderness. 

Among Dr. Smith's varied attainments was a cultivat- 
ed literary taste. He was a great reader and a vigorous 
writer. The newspapers of Bedford and Cambria counties 
contained many well-written contributions from his ready 
pen in the days before the civil war. While residing in 
Ebensburg he was universally accepted as an -authority in 
all literary matters, and upon historical subjects particularly 
he was a veritable cyclopsedia. His literary style was for- 
cible, direct, and elegant. While residing in Philadelphia 
he became an active member of St. Andrew's Society, and 
after he was 65 years old he prepared and published elabo- 
rate historical sketches of its first two presiding officers, Dr. 
Thomas Graeme and Lieutenant Governor James Hamilton, 
both ante-Revolutionary characters. These two literary pro- 
ductions are so well written and so perfect in all literary 
essentials that they alone entitle their author to an honor- 
able place among Pennsylvania's historical writers. 

The remains of our old friend were buried in St. Peter's 
churchyard, at the corner of Third and Pine streets, Phila- 
delphia, on Tuesday afternoon, the 1st of November, 1887. 

Dr. Smith's father, William Rudolph Smith, was born 
at La Trappe, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, on August 
31, 1787, and died at Quincy, Illinois, on August 22, 1808. 
In 1803 he accompanied his father to England as his 
private secretary, studied law in the Middle Temple, and 
on his return home in 1808 was admitted to the bar of 
Philadelphia. He removed to Huntingdon county in the 
following year and in 1811 he became deputy attorney gen- 
eral of Cambria county. He subsequently removed to Bed- 
ford county. Removing to Wisconsin in 1838 he took an 
active part in its aifairs until his death. 




90 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 



JUDGE JAMES POTTS. 



WRITTEN IN 1891 AND PRINTED IN PAMPHLET FORM FOR 
PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 



On August 8, 1891, the old citizens of Johnstown and 
more than forty members of the bar of Cambria county 
laid to rest in Grand View cemetery the remains of Hon. 
James Potts, who died at Oil City, Venango county, on 
Thursday, August 6, 1891. He was born at Butler, Penn- 
sylvania, on August 31, 1809, and was consequently at the 
time of his death almost 82 years old. 

James Potts was the son of John Potts, a native of the 
North of Ireland. His mother's maiden name was Jane 
Karns, who was also of Scotch-Irish extraction. Both fami- 
lies were not only among the first settlers of AVestern Penn- 
sylvania but they were also long prominent in the social, 
business, and political affairs of that part of our State. 
John Potts, the father of James Potts, was one of the pio- 
neer settlers of the town of Butler. He was a merchant. 
He was also an active and influential politician. He rep- 
resented Butler county in the Legislature at a very early 
day and also held the offices of county treasurer and county 
commissioner. Two of his sons, George and James, were 
also politicians from their boyhood. The father was a dis- 
ciple of Thomas Jefferson and his sons were Democrats all 
their days. The Karns family was divided in its political 
allegiance. Two members of this family, William and 
Samuel D. Karns, brothers, were prominent in the councils 
of the Democratic and Whig parties respectively. 

The town of Butler was mainly settled by brainy, en- 
terprising, and cultivated families, who w^ere nearly all of 
Scotch-Irish origin and Presbyterian in their religious faith. 
Among a people of such characteristics and antecedents 
James Potts grew up. He lacked no advantages which 
churches, schools, good health, a comfortable home, ambi- 



JUDGE JAMES POTTS. 91 

tious parents, and superior social surroundings could give. 
He lived in an intellectual and social atmosphere that was 
wholesome and elevating. Intended for one of the liberal 
professions he became a student of Jefferson College when 
he was about 17 years old, and he almost completed the 
regular four years' course. Owing to some accidental occur- 
rence he did not graduate, but he obtained a good knowl- 
edge of Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics and 
some knowledge of Hebrew. He was a great reader of his- 
tory while at college and ever afterwards. He was born 
with decided literary tastes, and at college these tastes had 
opportunity for healthy development. When yet a young 
man he had read much good literature, was a writer of 
good English, and was a ready and impressive public speaker. 

Leaving college about 1829 or 1830 James Potts appears 
to have not immediately entered upon the study of a pro- 
fession, as we hear of him a few years later as a student 
of law with his early friend and playmate, Samuel A. Pur- 
viance, of Butler, who afterwards became noted for his legal 
attainments and his political prominence. James Potts did, 
however, push his way to the front of Butler county poli- 
tics soon after leaving college, and with such success that 
when he was 25 years old he was postmaster of Butler. 
About the time when he was appointed to this political 
office he was elected captain of an infantry company, the 
Butler Blues, a volunteer military organization, and a little 
while later he was elected major of the battalion to which 
his company was attached. In 1837, after he had com- 
menced the study of law, he was appointed one of the 
clerks of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 
that year, of which some of the most eminent men of the 
State were members. Here his opportunities for increasing 
his political acquaintance and forming political friendships 
were most excellent, and he at once attained a high stand- 
ing among the Democratic leaders of Pennsylvania. 

On the 2d day of October, 1838, James Potts and his 
cousin, Margaret Jane Karns, were married at Pittsburgh 
by the Rev. James Prestly. Mrs. Potts's father's name was 
James Elliott Karns. During the following winter the 
canal commissioners, under the administration of Governor 



92 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

David R. Porter, appointed James Potts, who had first been 
Captain Potts and was now Major Potts, collector of tolls at 
Johnstown, on the main line of the public improvements 
of the State, succeeding Frederick Sharretts, a Whig. Soon 
after his ai:)pointment Major Potts visited Johnstown for 
the first time, and in March, 1839, when less than 30 years 
old, he entered upon his new duties and set up housekeep- 
ing in the official residence of the collector, attached to the 
collector's office on Canal street, now Washington street. 
Major Potts continued as collector of tolls for five years, 
or until 1844, when he was succeeded by A. W. Wasson, of 
Erie, who was in turn succeeded a few years later by 
Obed Edson, of Warren. During a large part of Major 
Potts's term as collector he had as his clerks George Nel- 
son Smith, Campbell Sheridan, and Cyrus L. Pershing, all 
well known to the old citizens of Johnstown. 

Upon coming to Johnstown in the spring of 1839 Major 
Potts and his wife at once became a positive and beneficent 
social force in their new home. They were a handsome 
couple, tasteful in dress, courtly in manner, fond of social 
gatherings where gentility counted for something, exceed- 
ingly hospitable in their own elegantly furnished home, 
regular attendants at church, and possessed of many polite 
accomplishments as well as a generous income apart from 
the emoluments of the collector's office. Mrs. Potts was a 
woman of rare grace and of queenly presence, of most win- 
ning ways, cheerful and hopeful under all circumstances, 
devoted to her home, ever ready to make others happy, the 
possessor of a mind cultivated by much reading and con- 
tact with well-read and well-bred people — a lady, in brief, 
of exalted character. She died on August 9, 1879, in Johns- 
town, living there all her married life. She was the mother 
of eight children. Her oldest daughter Jane lost her life 
in the Johnstown flood of 1889. 

When Major Potts surrendered the collector's office to 
his successor he opened an office on Clinton street for the 
practice of law so far as this could be done without his 
having previously been admitted to the bar. He had not 
completed his legal studies when he came to Johnstown, 
but when the whirligig of politics threw him on his own 



JUDGE JAMES POTTS. 93 

resources he resolved not only to make Johnstown his per- 
manent home but to rely upon the practice of law for a 
livelihood. To comply with the court regulations before 
applying for admission to the bar he nominally became a 
student with Hon. Moses Canan, then the only lawyer in 
Johnstown, and on the 7th of October, 1846, he was form- 
ally admitted as a member of the Cambria county bar. He 
at once entered upon an active and lucrative practice, in 
which he continued until advancing years and declining 
health caused him to virtually retire from the further prac- 
tice of his profession. On June 11, 1850, when on a visit 
to his old home in Butler, he was admitted as a member 
of the Butler county bar. For about three years, beginning 
with 1850, he was the senior member of the law firm of 
Potts & Kopelin. Abram Kopelin had studied law with 
Major Potts and was a bright and promising student. He 
afterwards became one of the most distinguished members 
of the Cambria county bar. Major Potts never had any 
other law partner. 

At the time of his death Major Potts was the oldest in 
years of all the members of the Cambria county bar, but 
there survived him two members who were engaged in 
practice before he had been admitted. Hon. John Fenlon 
was admitted on July 3, 1837, and General Joseph McDon- 
ald on April 3, 1844. For these dates I am indebted to 
Hon. George M. Reade, of Ebeusburg, who completed his 
legal studies with Potts & Kopelin. 

As early as 1850 an active agitation had commenced in 
the southern part of Cambria county in favor of the es- 
tablishment of a new county, with Johnstown as the coun- 
ty-seat, and in 1854, after the election of George S. King 
to the Legislature, this movement, with which Mr. King 
earnestly sympathized, took shape in the preparation of a 
bill which provided for the organization of a new county. 
The measure failed before the Legislature, but the agitation 
was again fiercely renewed in 1860, when Major Potts, who 
had from the first been one of its principal promoters, be- 
came the candidate for the Legislature of what was known 
as the New County party. He was defeated after a most 
animated canvass, which has probably never been surpass- 



94 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

ed in intensity in Cambria county. Then the war came^ 
but a few years after it closed the new-county movement 
was again renewed with great energy, this time, however^ 
taking the form of a proposition to remove the county- 
seat from Ebensburg to Johnstown. In 1870 Captain H. D. 
Woodruff, of Johnstown, ran as a candidate for the Legis- 
lature on this issue, but was defeated by a small majorit3^ 
It had previously been proposed to establish at Johnstown 
a district court which should include within its jurisdiction 
Johnstown and some neighboring towns and townships. 
This scheme was so far successful that in 1869 it was ap- 
proved in an act of the Legislature and the court was duly 
established, the judges of the Cambria county courts offici- 
ating as judges of the district court. Subsequent legisla- 
tion provided for the election of all district court officers 
by the citizens of the district, but before an election could 
be held the offices were filled by appointment of the Gov- 
ernor, Major Potts being appointed president judge by Gov- 
ernor Geary in 1871. He was subsequently elected to this 
position. Several sessions of the new court were held with 
Judge Potts on the bench. But the court, which had at 
first been eagerly desired, soon fell into disfavor because by 
the terms creating it it partook too much of the character 
of a police court. There was much legislation concerning 
it and much litigation. In 1874 Judge Potts was defeated 
as a candidate for re-election to the judgeship, and in 1875 
the Supreme Court of the State decided that the act creat- 
ing the district court was unconstitutional. This ended the 
new-county and county-seat agitation which had existed for 
a quarter of a century. 

Soon after coming to Johnstown Major Potts took an in- 
terest in its military affairs. There had existed for a number 
of years a volunteer infantry company called the Conemaugh 
Guards, of which Joseph Chamberlain, John K. Shryock, 
and John Linton were successively captains. About 1841 a 
rival comjDany was organized, called the Washington Artil- 
lerists, of which Peter Levergood, Jr., was elected captain. 
He was succeeded by George W. Easly, and about 1842 Col- 
lector Potts was elected captain, a position which he held 
for many years. The name of the company had in the 



JUDGE JAMES POTTS. 95 

meantime been changed to Washington Grays. The Grays 
were often on dress parade and with the Conemaugh Guards 
they participated in many encampments. Those Avere stir- 
ring times for a country town. Major Potts was a good 
(h'ill officer. At the beginning of the Rebellion he took de- 
light in drilling Johnstown volunteers for the Union army. 

I may here recall the interesting fact that James Potts 
played the drum on the 3d day of June, 1825, upon the oc- 
casion of Lafayette's reception by the people of the town of 
Butler, and that the fifer whom he accompanied with his 
drum was a Revolutionary soldier named Peter McKiimey, 
who had played the fife at Bunker Hill in 1775, just fifty 
years before. In our old friend we have had a link to con- 
nect the present generation with Revolutionary days. 

In 1840, not long after Major Potts came to Johnstown, 
the Washingtonian temperance movement was started, and 
in this movement he took an active interest, attending and 
addressing the meetings which w^ere held in 1840 and 1841, 
and perhaps in 1842, in the various churches of Johnstown, 
and aiding greatly by his earnestness and ability in obtain- 
ing signers to the Washingtonian pledge. The Washingto- 
nian movement in Johnstown was soon followed by the 
organization of the Juvenile Temperance Society, and the 
credit of originating and perfecting this organization be- 
longs wholly to Major Potts. It lasted for two or three 
years, and did great good in starting many Johnstown boys 
in the right path. Subsequently Major Potts assisted in 
organizing the Johnstown Division of Sons of Temperance 
and its companion the Cadets of Temperance. All his days 
he was a consistent and earnest temperance man. His in- 
fluence in Johnstown in behalf of temperance was a marked 
feature of his useful life. 

But Major Potts was active in other good works in 
Johnstown for many years after he became one of its citi- 
zens and at a time when men of capacity and courage were 
greatly needed. It will surprise many who read these lines 
to learn that when he came to Johnstown the common- 
school system as it has been known to this generation was 
so unpopular in his new home that there was danger of its 
complete rejection, wdiile in some of the country districts 



96 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

surrounding Johnstown it had actually been rejected. Of 
all the defenders of the common-school system in Johnstown 
at this period Major Potts was certainly the most active, and 
the final establishment of the system on a firm foundation 
in that town and in neighboring school districts was very 
largely the result of his earnest efforts. When the system 
was still in danger in Johnstown he was chosen a school 
director, and for many years he faithfully and zealously 
served his fellow citizens in that humble and thankless po- 
sition. He was also one of the prime movers in the estab- 
lishment about 1851 of a select school for girls, which 
was held in the building especially erected for the purpose 
in the rear of the Presbyterian church and was presided 
over by Miss A. L. Elliott and Miss Hannah McCullough, 
the latter being succeeded in a year or two by Miss Re- 
becca Newell. This school was a signal success for many 
years. The cause of popular education in Johnstown and 
the cause of liberal education as well never had a better 
or more efficient friend than Major Potts. 

When our old friend came to Johnstown in 1839 his 
official position and his natural tastes combined to make 
him active in local politics, while his wide acquaintance 
with the leading members of his party made him also 
to some extent a factor in State politics. He had opin- 
ions of his own about men and measures and expressed 
them freely. He was long a regular attendant at the coun- 
ty conventions of his party. He was a Tariff Democrat 
and a friend of Simon Cameron. He was a ready po- 
litical writer and liked to take part in newspaper contro- 
versies. For a few months in 1846 he was one of the 
editors of an independent Democratic paper published in 
Johnstown in 1846 and in 1847, called The Democratic 
Courier ; but a year or two before this, during the inter- 
regnum between his retirement from the collector's office 
and his entrance upon the active practice of law, he ed- 
ited for one winter the Democratic organ at Harrisburg, 
the Argus. In 1847 the Courier opposed Governor Shunk's 
renomination. It was then edited by T. A. Maguire. The 
paper died in that year. In both cases in which Major 
Potts assumed editorial duties he was influenced by his 



JUDGE JAMES POTTS. 97 

strong partisanship and his thoroughly unselfish devotion to 
his political friends. With the exceptions which have been 
noted he never, however, was the recipient of noteworthy- 
political honors. While personally popular with men of all 
parties his independent and often impulsive methods did 
not commend him to wide recognition as a party leader. 

For several years before the Johnstown flood of May 31, 
1889, Judge Potts had lived a quiet and retired life in the 
■comfortable home on Walnut street he had built about 1853, 
and which was always, especially during the lifetime of Mrs. 
Potts, one of the most hospitable and inviting of all Johns- 
town homes. A large garden and many fruit trees occupied 
much of the judge's attention from spring to fall, and at all 
seasons his well-stored library served to employ his active 
brain and to afford subjects of conversation with friends 
who called to see him. The last conversation I ever held 
with the judge on the porch of the old-fashioned brick 
house to which he was so much attached was suggested by 
his reference to the important part which George Wash- 
ington had personally taken in the development of Western 
Pennsylvania. He was an ardent patriot, and the history 
of his country was as familiar to him as household words, 
while the achievements of its great men aroused his enthu- 
siasm and excited his pride whenever they were recalled. 
Western Pennsylvania had a warm place in his affections. 
He was also a close Bible student and an intelligent ad- 
herent of the faith of his fathers. Without pressing his re- 
ligious views or his biblical knowledge upon others he was 
always most entertaining when religious or scriptural ques- 
tions were the subjects of conversation. His knowledge of 
every subject in which he took an interest was thorough ; 
he could be superficial in nothing which he set out to un- 
derstand. The early history of Johnstown, its surveys, its 
metes and bounds, all these were well known to him. 

When the flood came on that last day of May, 1889, 
Judge Potts and his family were overwhelmed by the 
mighty rush of waters ; their home was destroyed in an 
instant ; his oldest daughter, as has already been stated, 
was lost, although her body was afterwards found ; and the 
judge and his remaining children were swept down toward 



98 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

the now historic stone bridge, where they were rescued. In 
a day or two the judge and his family found a refuge with 
friends in Westmoreland county and afterwards with friends 
in Blair county; thence going before the summer was over 
to Oil City, where a new home was secured, and where, a 
few weeks ago, away from the few old friends who had 
survived the flood, he died. 

As my memory carries me back over the fifty years 
which Judge Potts spent in Johnstown I am impressed by 
the thought that the town never had a more worthy citizen, 
never a truer friend, never a more potent force in giving 
rightful direction to its social and moral development. His 
influence was always on the right side of every question 
which affected its welfare, and in his younger days that in- 
fluence was exerted to the utmost whenever the occasion 
called for wise leadership. His very presence in the com- 
munity was in those days an inspiration to the timid, the 
irresolute, the unfortunate, and the friendless. He was espe- 
cially the friend of ambitious young men. I can name 
many successful men who have had Johnstown for their 
home who owe a great deal of their success in life to the 
encouragement they received from Judge Potts. His home 
of refinement and grace was always open to them when 
they were boys ; his books were freely loaned to them ; his 
interest in them never ceased ; his praise was never with- 
held. He was one of the first residents of Johnstown to 
give to its social currents a literary direction and the desire 
for the training of colleges and seminaries. But it was in 
wider directions that his influence for the good of Johns- 
town was most felt and has been most lasting. 

Nearly all the men whose brains and courage and devo- 
tion made Johnstown the prosperous and orderly town that 
it was before the flood have gone to their reward. Now 
there is a new town among the hills and there are new 
people in its new homes. It is not surprising to be told that, 
when Judge Potts visited Johnstown for the last time three 
months ago, his heart was broken by a flood of memories 
as crushing as the flood of waters. The old home and the 
old town gone, old friends gone, himself an old man, what 
could he do but die and be gathered to his fathers ? 



JUDGE CYRUS L. PERSHING. 99 



JUDGE CYRUS L. PERSHING. 



WRITTEN IN 1904 AND PRINTED IN PAMPHLET FORM FOR 
PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 



Among the departed great men of Pennsylvania whose 
services to the Commonwealth deserve to be gratefully re- 
membered the faithful historian will place Judge Cyrus L. 
Pershing, who died on June 29, 1903, at his home in Potts- 
ville, Schuylkill county. Pennsylvanians should be proud 
of the fact that this modest but distinguished citizen lived 
all his days within the borders of the Keystone State. 

The Pershing family is one of the oldest in Western 
Pennsylvania. It is of Huguenot origin, Judge Pershing's 
great-grandfather, Frederick Pershing, having emigrated to 
this country from Alsace, then a part of France, landing at 
Baltimore on October 2, 1749. In 1773 the emigrant pur- 
chased a tract of 269 acres of land upon the headwaters 
of Nine Mile run in what is now^ Unity township, West- 
moreland county, Pennsylvania, and in 1774 he moved his 
family from Frederick county, Maryland, to the new home. 
With his sons he engaged in farming and he also built 
" Pershing's mill." One of his grandsons, Christopher, son 
of Christian, was the father of the future judge. Judge 
Pershing's mother, Elizabeth Long, was also descended from 
a pioneer family in Westmoreland county, her grandfather,. 
Jacob Long, a Pennsylvania German, having moved from 
Lancaster county to Westmoreland county about the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth century. Jacob Long's grandfather,^ 
Oswald Long, and his father, Diebold Long, emigrated from 
Wurtemberg in 1730. 

Cyrus Long Pershing was born at Youngstown, West- 
moreland county, on February 3, 1825. He was therefore in 
his 79th year at the time of his death. In 1830 his father 
moved his family to Johnstown, dying there in 1836. Cy- 
rus was the oldest of three brothers. A good mother was 



100 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

equal to her responsibilities. That her boys should receive 
the best education that was possible was her firm deter- 
mination. They were early sent to " subscription schools." 
When thirteen years old Cyrus became a clerk in a store 
in Johnstown. Here he learned from the farmers to speak 
Pennsylvania Dutch fluently. In 1841, when sixteen years 
old, he was employed as a clerk at the weighlock of the 
Pennsylvania Canal at Johnstown. Subsequently he filled 
other clerical positions in connection with the canal. In all 
these positions as opportunity would permit he was an in- 
dustrious student of the educational text books of the day. 
In 1839 he commenced the study of Latin with Rev. 
Shadrach Howell Terry, the first pastor of the Presbyterian 
church at Johnstown, and afterwards he began with Mr. 
Terry the study of Greek. Mr. Terry died in 1841 and 
was succeeded by Rev. Samuel Swan. In 1842 Cyrus L. 
Pershing recited Greek to Mr. Swan that he might be pre- 
pared to enter the freshman class of Jefferson College, at 
'Canonsburg, which he entered in November of that year. 
From this time until June 14, 1848, when he was graduat- 
ed, he continued his college studies in the winter and his 
■clerical duties in the summer, with the exception of a few 
months in 1846, when he taught one of the public schools 
in Johnstown. 

During the winter following his graduation Mr. Per- 
shing taught a classical school at Johnstown, which was 
well attended and was very successful. In 1849, having re- 
solved to study law, he accepted an invitation from Jere- 
miah S. Black, of Somerset, afterwards the distinguished 
jurist, to enter his office as a student. In November, 1850, 
he was admitted to the Somerset bar, and immediately 
afterwards, on November 26, 1850, he was admitted to the 
bar of Cambria county. He opened an office in Johnstown 
for the practice of his profession and at once entered upon 
a large and profitable practice in the courts of Cambria 
€Ounty. This practice he continued to enjoy as long as he 
remained a citizen of Johnstown. He also established out- 
side of Cambria county an excellent reputation as a j^ains- 
taking lawyer who knew the law, and this reputation paved 
the way for new clients and for honors which soon came 



JUDGE CYRUS L. PERSHING. 101 

to him. Judge Black was so impressed by the natural 
ability of his student and the readiness with which he 
mastered legal principles and the details of legal practice 
that he offered him a partnership immediately after hi& 
admission to the bar, but this arrangement was not con- 
summated because of Judge Black's elevation to the Su- 
preme Bench of Pennsylvania in 1851. 

Soon after his admission to the bar Mr. Pershing was 
married to Miss Mary Letitia Royer, youngest daughter of 
Hon. John Royer, a pioneer iron manufacturer in the Ju- 
niata valley and a Whig member of the Legislature from 
Huntingdon county and afterwards from Cambria county. 
The marriage took place at Mill Creek Furnace on Sep- 
tember 23, 1851. Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs, 
Pershing, all of whom, with their mother, are still living. 

All lawyers in country towns in the old days were 
expected to be politicians, even if they did not have politi- 
cal ambition of their own. Most of them, however, were 
ambitious of political preferment. Cyrus L. Pershing was 
a politician from boyhood. He knew the history of hi& 
country and of political parties as few other boys knew it. 
He early developed literary talent as a writer for the local 
newspapers, and what he wrote for publication often relat- 
ed to the political issues of the day. He became a member 
of a local debating society and soon developed considera- 
ble ability as a public speaker. Even before he was ad- 
mitted to the bar he was in demand as a speaker at 
neighborhood meetings of the Democratic party, to which 
party he faithfully adhered from the beginning to the end 
of his active career. When yet a boy he began to keep 
a diary of miscellaneous occurrences and also a scrap- 
book of election returns and political events. This habit 
of methodically preserving facts which he deemed worthy 
of preservation strengthened a naturally retentive memory 
and nourished his literary and historical tastes. Running^ 
through his public speeches and addresses while he lived 
in Johnstown there was always a historical vein. In 1848, 
before his admission to the bar, he was the orator of the 
day at a banquet given at Johnstown to the Cambria county 
volunteers who had returned from the Mexican war. Few 



102 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

men who have ever lived in Pennsylvania have known 
the history of the State, and especially its political history, 
as Cyrus L. Pershing knew it. He was familiar with the 
careers of its notable men — politicians, lawyers, clergymen, 
college professors, and others, and he had a personal ac- 
quaintance with many of them. 

After his admission to the bar Mr. Pershing's advance- 
ment in the councils and leadership of his party was so 
rapid that in 1856 and again in 1858 he was the Demo- 
cratic candidate for Congress in the district of which 
Cambria county formed a part. He was defeated in both 
years, as the district was largely Republican in sentiment, 
but in each year he greatly reduced the normal anti- 
Democratic majority. In the autumn of 1861 he was elect- 
ed a member of the Legislature from Cambria county, and 
he was re-elected in 1862, 1863, 1864, and 1865, serving in 
this office for an unusually long and continuous period. 
His service in the Legislature ended with the session of 
1866. The author of a published sketch of Mr. Pershing 
in 1869 says : " During the whole of Mr. Pershing's service 
at Harrisburg he was a member of the committee of ways 
and means, the judiciary, and other important general and 
special committees. At the session of 1863, the only one 
in which the Democrats had a majority, Mr. Pershing was 
chairman of the committee on federal relations and at the 
succeeding session he was the Democratic nominee for 
Speaker of the House. He was an acknowledged leader 
and enjoyed to a rare degree the confidence and personal 
esteem of his fellow members without distinction of party." 

It will be observed that Mr. Pershing's services in the 
Pennsylvania Legislature covered almost the entire period 
of the civil war. He was himself a War Democrat and 
believed in the vigorous prosecution of the war. In addi- 
tion to what is said of Mr. Pershing's legislative career in 
the extract above quoted it can be stated as a part of the 
history of that great struggle that Governor Curtin was in 
the habit of privately consulting with Mr, Pershing as the 
Democratic leader in emergencies which were constantly 
arising. The Governor could rely on his loyalty, his wis- 
dom, and his influence over his fellow members. 



JUDGE CYRUS L. PERSHING. 103 

Honors now came to Cyrus L. Pershing in rapid succes- 
sion. In 18()G he was a delegate from his Congressional 
district to the National Union Convention which met at 
Philadelphia in August of that year. In 1868 he was a 
Presidential elector on the Democratic ticket. In 1869 he 
was the Democratic candidate for judge of the Supreme 
Court of Pennsylvania, but was defeated by a small ma- 
jority. In 1872, owing to divisions in the Democratic party 
of Schuylkill county, he was asked to become a compromise 
candidate for president judge of the courts of that county. 
Mr. Pershing accepted the nomination with some hesitation, 
remarking to the writer of this sketch that it was always 
a risk to transplant an old tree. He was then in his 48th 
year. He had never been in Schuylkill county, and was, of 
course, a stranger to most of its people, even to many mem- 
bers of the bar who had urged him to accept the nomina- 
tion. However, he consented to become a candidate and 
was elected by a large majority for the constitutional term 
of ten years. In December, 1872, he held his first court at 
Pottsville and in the spring of 1873 he moved his family 
to Pottsville. In 1882 he was elected for another term of 
ten years, and in 1892 for still another term. But failing 
health prevented him from serving the whole of the third 
term. He resigned in August, 1899, having presided with 
great acceptance over the courts of Schuylkill county for 
twenty-seven consecutive years. From 1899 until his death 
in 1903 he rested from his labors, but his interest in pub- 
lic affairs and in the welfare of his immediate neighbor- 
hood never ceased, and his wonderful memory never failed 
until he was stricken with his last illness. 

In 1875, while presiding over the courts of Schuylkill 
county. Judge Pershing was nominated for Governor of 
Pennsylvania by the Democratic State Convention of that 
year, his opponent being General John F. Hartranft, who 
had been elected to the Governorship in 1872 and was now 
a candidate for a second term. Owing to his position on 
the bench Judge Pershing could not " take the stump." So 
great, however, was his personal popularity that he was 
defeated by General Hartranft by a majority of less than 
12,000 votes. Outside of Philadelphia he carried the State. 



104 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

From 1876 to 1878, inclusive, during Judge Pershing's 
first term as president judge of Schuylkill county, the infa- 
mous criminal organization known as the Molly Maguires 
was completely broken up and many of its members were 
hung as the result of a series of trials over many of which 
Judge Pershing presided. This organization had terrorized 
the anthracite region for several years, and its agents had 
committed many murders to establish its lawless authority 
over the mining of anthracite coal. At the risk of his life 
Judge Pershing did not hesitate to sentence to death the 
convicted participants in these crimes who were tried before 
him. From the beginning to the end of these trials he dis- 
played a degree of both physical and moral courage that 
has never been excelled on the bench. The trials attracted 
national attention. The law-abiding citizens of Schuylkill 
county, without respect to party, have never ceased to ex- 
press their great obligations to Judge Pershing for the cour- 
ageous part he took in ridding the county of the Mollie 
Maguire terror. He had been thoroughly tested and found 
to be pure gold. 

Judge Pershing became a member of the First Presby- 
terian church of Johnstown when still a young man. He 
became a teacher in its Sunday-school and was afterwards 
its superintendent for many years. He was a ruling elder 
in the church when scarcely thirty years old and he con- 
tinued in the eldership during his residence in Johnstown. 
After his removal to Pottsville he was chosen to the same 
office in the Second Presbyterian church of that place, and 
for many years he taught the Bible class in its Sunday- 
school. He was a member of the Union Presbyterian Con- 
vention which met in Philadelphia in November, 1867, and 
a member of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church which met at Chicago in 1877, at Saratoga in 1884, 
at Philadelphia in 1888, and at Washington City in 1893. 

Judge Pershing was always a loyal friend of his alma 
mater, Jefferson College, and of the united colleges, Wash- 
ington and Jefferson. From March, 1865, until June, 1877, 
when he resigned, he was a trustee of Washington and 
Jefferson College. At the laying of the corner-stone of the 
front part of the main college building, on October 21, 



JUDGE CYRUS L. PERSHING. 105 

1873, Judge Pershing delivered an address. In 1900 the 
trustees of tlie college conferred upon him the honorary- 
degree of doctor of laws, an honor that he richly deserved. 

Judge Pershing died at his home in Pottsville on June 
29, 1903, as has already been stated. Never a strong man 
physically, frail of body but big in intellect, the last few 
years of his life were a continual struggle against uncon- 
querable disease. The several courts of Schuylkill county 
at once adjourned when his death became known. On the 
same day a largely attended meeting of the bench and bar 
of the county was held at the court-house in Pottsville, 
at which addresses were delivered and resolutions were 
adopted which recognized the great services of the deceas- 
ed jurist and expressed profound appreciation of his lofty 
private character. It was resolved to attend the funeral 
in a body. On July 2 the body of Judge Pershing was 
laid to rest in Mount Laurel cemetery, in Pottsville, in 
sight of the beautiful home on the hillside in which he 
had lived with his wife and children for thirty years. 

The services at the house and at the grave were ren- 
dered particularly impressive by the presence of Rev. Dr. 
Benjamin L. Agnew, the secretary of the board of minis- 
terial relief of the Presbyterian Church. Dr. Agnew was 
for ten years the pastor of the First Presbyterian church 
of Johnstown, and during the whole of this period Judge 
Pershing was one of his elders and one of his most inti- 
mate friends. Dr. Agnew and Judge Pershing were born 
in adjoining counties — Dr. Agnew in Armstrong county and 
Judge Pershing in Westmoreland county. 

At the meeting of the bench and bar of Schuylkill 
county on the day of Judge Pershing's death President 
Judge Bechtel, the chairman, said: "No one ever faced his 
duty more conscientiously than Judge Pershing. He came 
here to preside over a court w'hich had the distinction of 
having a bar membership second to none in the great State 
of Pennsylvania. He was called upon at that time to dis- 
pose of most intricate civil, equitable, and other legal ques- 
tions. He lived through it all and performed his duties 
faithfully, sincerely, and earnestly. His action in his offi- 
cial capacity brought honor and greatness to him. His 



106 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

decisions were quoted as authority throughout the State 
by such eminent jurists as Judge Elvvell and others, and 
were considered akin to decisions of the Supreme Court." 

On the day of his death the newspapers of Pottsville 
referred to the character and services of Judge Pershing 
in most kindly terms. The Chronicle said : "In the death 
of Hon. Cyrus L. Pershing Schuylkill county loses one of 
its most eminent and honored citizens and the State a ju- 
rist whose record was second to none. Judge Pershing came 
to Schuylkill county untried upon the bench. He soon, 
however, demonstrated the wisdom of his selection, for no 
man ever did more to raise the standard of the bench of 
Schuylkill county than he. His private life was spotless, 
his career upon the bench above criticism, and when he 
voluntarily retired from public life he carried with him the 
highest esteem and sincere love of the entire county which 
he had so zealously and ably served." The Republican 
said : " Pottsville and Schuylkill county have lost a distin- 
guished citizen by the death of Judge Cyrus L. Pershing. 
Judge Pershing was a man of large mental capacity, power- 
ful will, sterling character, and the strictest integrity. His 
private life, in the church and in the precincts of the 
home circle, was a model one. Judge Pershing was one of 
the representative men of Pottsville, one whose memory is 
a precious heritage." 

Cyrus L. Pershing was a thoroughly equipped lawyer, 
a wise and just judge, a politician who sought the public 
welfare and a man of wide influence in the promotion of 
many good works. But the world can not know, as his in- 
timate friends knew, and especially as his old friends knew, 
how hard, how very hard, was the struggle that he was 
compelled to make to fit himself for the duties that fell to 
his lot. From a child he was handicapped by weak eye- 
sight, and in his ambition to obtain a liberal education he 
had no assistance, but he never faltered in that ambition 
from the time he recited his first Latin lesson, and he lit- 
erally paid his own way through a college course. All his 
subsequent success was due to the same courageous spirit 
and to his remarkable industry. He was no idler, no trifler 
with precious time. The work that was given him to do 



JUDGE CYRUS L. PERSHING. 107 

he did with all his might. All his life he was a student, 
not only of books but also of men and events. Withal 
he was sociable, genial, and kind-hearted. His wonderful 
memory of historical events and his recollections of public 
men, joined to a vein of the keenest humor and to a ready 
wit that no bodily affliction ever suppressed, made him a 
delightful companion for old and young. And yet, looking 
back upon his long and useful and honorable life, no trait 
hi his character appeals to us with so much force as the 
brave fight he made against mighty odds to secure a lib- 
•eral education and a mastery of his profession. He was 
pre-eminently a man of courage. He conquered difficulties 
that would have appalled most men and he feared no man. 




108 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 



COLONEL JACOB M. CAMPBELL. 



AN EDITOEIAL IN THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBITNE OF FRIDAY, 
AUGUST 25, 1865, WITH ADDENDA. 



The importance of the pending political campaign in 
this State, 4ind the enthusiasm everywhere created among 
loyal men by the nomination of two distinguished soldiers 
for the only offices to be filled this year on the State ticket,, 
naturally call for more than a brief reference to the antece- 
dents and characteristics of our Republican standard-bearers. 
In another place we give such information as we possess 
concerning the civic and military record of Major General 
Hartranft, the candidate for auditor general, and in this 
article we propose to tell what we know about our friend 
and fellow-citizen. Colonel Campbell, the nominee for sur- 
veyor general. 

Jacob Miller Campbell is a native of that old Whig 
stronghold, Somerset county, where he was born forty-four 
years ago in Allegheny township on November 20, 1821. 
He was the son of John and Mary (Weyand) Campbell. 
When a mere youth his parents removed to Allegheny City, 
where he went to school until 1835. In that year, being 
fourteen years old, he became an apprentice in the office 
of the Somerset Whig, a Democratic newspaper, in which he 
remained until he had mastered as much of the printing 
business as could be learned in a country office of that day. 
In 1840 he left Somerset and worked for some time " at 
case" in the office of the Literary Examiner, a monthly 
magazine of considerable merit, published in Pittsburgh. 
From here our " jour printer " found his way to New Or- 
leans and to another printing office. But his active nature 
was not satisfied. The steamboat trade on the lower Missis- 
sippi presented in 1840, as does the oil business in 1865, 
tempting inducements to enterprising spirits who care less 
for hard knocks than for the substantial benefits which they 



COLONEL JACOB M. CAMPBELL. 109 

sometimes produce. Laying down his composing stick the 
boy of nineteen became a steamboatman, and for several 
subsequent years he filled successively the positions of clerk, 
mate, and part owner of a steamboat, always, however, mak- 
ing Pennsylvania his home, which he frequently visited. 
In 1847 the iron business of our State attracted his atten- 
tion and he embarked in it at Brady's Bend, working as a 
roller in a rolling mill. In the same year he married. In 
1851 he followed the course of empire to California but did 
not long remain there, and in 1853 we find him in Johns- 
town assisting in the construction of our mammoth rolling 
mill. With this splendid enterprise he remained connected 
up to the breaking out of the war, holding all the time an 
important and responsible position. 

In April, 1861, Fort Sumter was fired upon and the 
<5all appeared for volunteers to " rally round the flag." At 
that time Mr. Campbell was first lieutenant of a volunteer 
company in Johnstown, and his company at once tendered 
its services to the Governor, who promptly accepted them. 
It was the first company to enter Camp Curtin. Upon the 
organization of the Third Regiment of Pennsylvania Volun- 
teers for three months' service this company became known 
as Company G. Lieutenant Campbell was appointed quar- 
termaster of the regiment, a position which he filled with 
great acceptance until the regiment was discharged. On the 
28th of July he was mustered out of service, and on the 
30th he was authorized to recruit a regiment for three years' 
service. In due time the regiment was completed and he 
was commissioned its colonel, the companies composing it 
having been largely recruited through his individual efforts. 
Eight of the ten companies were recruited in Cambria and 
Somerset counties and two in Lehigh and Northampton 
•counties. The regiment when mustered into service was 
designated the Fifty-fourth, 

For two years this regiment performed the arduous duty 
oi guarding sixty miles of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 
and while thus engaged it protected the Maryland and 
Pennsylvania border from Rebel invasion and from guer- 
rilla outrages. It is a fact that may not be generally known 
to Pennsylvanians that to the Fifty-fourth Regiment they 



110 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

owe much of the security they enjoyed in their persons and 
property during 1862 and 1863, the two most critical years 
of the war. The position of the Fifty-fourth was at all 
times an exceedingly dangerous one, requiring the exercise 
of the utmost vigilance and the soundest discretion. Dur- 
ing its guardianship of the railroad it was frequently en- 
gaged in skirmishes with the enemy, and upon more than 
one occasion it gave timely and valuable information of 
his movements and designs. In addition to his ordinary 
duties as commander of the regiment Colonel Campbell was 
almost daily called upon to decide disputes between the 
Rebels and Unionists residing along the line of the rail- 
road, and it is no exaggeration to say that in no instance 
was justice cheated or rascality rewarded. It is not an as- 
sertion merely, but the testimony of all who are cognizant 
of the facts, that the commander of the Fifty-fourth mani- 
fested on all occasions the possession of judicial qualities 
of a high order. Of his purely executive ability the suc- 
cessful and always satisfactory manner in which the regi- 
ment guarded those sixty miles of railroad in hostile terri- 
tory is the only proof that we need to cite. We had almost 
omitted to mention that from March, 1863, until March, 
1864, Colonel Campbell was in command of the Fourth 
Brigade, First Division, Eighth Army Corps, in which was 
included his own regiment. 

Early in 1864 General Sigel took command of the De- 
partment of West Virginia and moved with all his availa- 
ble troops to Martinsburg, preparatory to a movement up 
the Shenandoah valley. In a reorganization of the troops 
which then took place Colonel Campbell, at his own request, 
returned to the command of his regiment. At the battle 
of New Market, on May 15, 1864, the regiment suffered se- 
verely. It occupied the extreme left of the line and w^as 
the last to leave the field. 

Under General Hunter the Fifty-fourth Regiment took a 
prominent part in the battle of Piedmont, on June 5, 1864,^ 
again occupying the left of the line, and this time flanking 
the enemy's right and attacking him in the rear. After the 
battle Colonel Campbell was assigned to the command of a 
brigade and as a special favor his own regiment was trans- 



COLONEL JACOB M. CAMPBELL. Ill 

ferred to it, that it miglit remain under its old commander. 
The brigade suffered heavily in an attack on the Rebel 
entrenchments at Lynchburg and covered the retreat of the 
army when the attack failed. On July 24 the brigade 
participated in the battle of Winchester and upon the fall 
of Colonel Mulligan Colonel Campbell took command of his 
division. He continued in command until its consolida- 
tion into a brigade, consequent upon its many losses in killed 
and wounded, and he afterwards commanded the brigade. 
After General Sheridan came to the head of the department 
the brigade participated in the engagements in the Shen- 
andoah valley under that renowned commander. Colonel 
Campbell was mustered out of service nearly two months 
after the expiration of his three years' term of enlistment. 
His total period of service, including the three months' 
campaign, covered nearly three and a half years. 

Colonel Campbell's early record as a politician will bear 
examination. Reared in the school of Jacksonian Democracy 
he voted in 1844 for Polk and Dallas. In 1848, however, he 
abandoned the party which he had become convinced was 
the champion of slavery extension, and the foe to Penn- 
sylvania's best interests, and voted for the Free Soil candi- 
dates, Van Buren and Adams. His residence in the South 
had shown him the evils of slavery and he therefore gave 
his vote against the party which sought its extension. In 
1852 he voted again for the Free Soil nominees. Hale and 
Julian. In 1856 he was the delegate from Cambria county 
to the Fremont Convention, which met at Musical Fund 
Hall in Philadelphia. During that year he took an active 
part in advocating Republican principles in his own county, 
and at once took rank with the people of the county as a 
politician of fairness, ability, and zeal. His influence in 
county politics continued to be felt during the succeeding 
years. In 1859 he was the choice of the Republicans of 
Cambria county for the Senatorial nomination in the dis- 
trict composed of Cambria, Blair, and Clearfield counties, and 
a little more than a month ago he was again unanimously 
selected as the choice of the Union party of his county 
for Senator from the district composed of Cambria, Indi- 
ana, and Jeiferson counties. That he was not nominated on 



112 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

either occasion by the district conference was not owing to 
a want of appreciation of his worth and services, but was 
due to the supposed superior claims of the county which 
was honored with the nominee. Such is the private and 
public record of our candidate for surveyor general. 

Colonel Campbell is a shrewd business man, a public 
spirited citizen, a good worker, and an honest man. With- 
out having enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education 
he is, nevertheless, one of the best read men in the State. 
He is a clear thinker and remarkably cool and cautious in 
judgment. In a long acquaintance we have rarely known 
him to err in his estimate of public men or in the wisdom 
of public measures. He is a man of marked sagacity. His 
social characteristics are of that class which never fails to 
create the warmest friendships and to command the respect 
of all. That he is worthy of the office for which he has 
been nominated is conceded by those who know the man. 
That he and his gallant colleague. General Hartranft, will be 
elected by overwhelming majorities is a foregone conclusion. 



The foregoing sketch of Colonel Campbell was written 
when he was the Republican candidate for surveyor gen- 
eral in 1865. He was elected to that office for the term of 
three years on the ticket with General Hartranft for audi- 
tor general. In 1868 both gentlemen were re-elected to the 
same offices, each serving another term of three years. In 
1876 Colonel Camjibell was elected a Republican Represent- 
ative to the 45th Congress from the 17th district of Penn- 
sylvania, composed of the counties of Bedford, Blair, Cam- 
bria, and Somerset, receiving a majority of 520 votes over 
John Reilly, his Democratic opponent. In 1878 he was a 
candidate for re-election but was defeated by A. H. Coffroth 
by a majority of 305. In 1880 he was elected to the 47th 
Congress by a majority of 1,436 over A. H. Coffroth, and 
in 1882 he was elected to the 48tli Congress by a majority 
of 551 over the same opponent. He was elected to the 49th 
Congress by a majority of 3,564 over Americus Enfield. It 
will be seen that Colonel Campbell represented his district 
in Congress for the exceptionally long period of eight years, 
a fact which forcibly testifies to his popularity and ability. 



COLONEL JACOB M. CAMPBELL. 113 

An incident in the life of Colonel Campbell, illustrating 
his patriotism, should not go unrecorded. When in the 
service of AVood, Morrell & Co. he worked under a ton- 
nage contract for several years, employing his own helpers. 
This contract was profitable. When the civil war came 
and it was necessary for Pennsylvania to borrow a large 
sum of money to make preparation to assist the Govern- 
ment at Washington in resisting rebellion Colonel Campbell 
promptly subscribed $30,000 to the State loan, which repre- 
sented virtually all his savings. At the time this subscrip- 
tion was made the risk of payment of both interest and 
principal was very great, as all who passed through those 
trying times will well remember. More than one friend of 
Colonel Campbell said that he would never see his money 
again. 

On April 28, 1847, Colonel Campbell was married to 
Mary Rankin Campbell (no relative) at Brady's Bend. 
He died at Johnstown on September 27, 1888, aged nearly 
67 years. His wife and several children survived him. 




114 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 



ALEXANDER CHESTERFIELD MULLIN. 



WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1878, AND PRINTED IN PAMPHLET 
FORM FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 



Died, at his residence, No. 1735 Oxford street, Philadel- 
phia, on Friday, November 22, 1878, Alexander Chesterfield 
Mullin, aged 48 years, 2 months, and 3 days. 

Mr. Mullin was born on the 19th day of September, 
1830, in the town of Bedford, Pennsylvania, in the historic 
structure known then and now as the Old Fort. His pa- 
rents were George and Catharine Mullin, the father a native 
of Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and the mother, whose 
maiden name was Hammer, a native of Frederick county, 
Maryland. George Mullin was for many years a promi- 
nent citizen of Bedford county. In the fall of 1836, at the 
close of his second term as sheriff, he removed his family 
to the Mansion Farm, on the Wheeling turnpike, six miles 
west of Bedford, which he had purchased in 1818. Here 
his son Alexander lived, a farmer's boy, until he went from 
the parental roof, when little more than seventeen years 
old. He was the youngest of seven brothers. Three of the 
brothers were in the Union army. Both the grandfathers 
of this family served in the Revolutionary war. 

While living in Bedford Alexander attended the Bed- 
ford Academy. After the family removed to the farm, in 
1836, it was the good fortune of Alexander to be sent to 
several excellent subscription schools in the neighborhood. 
Alexander's mathematical studies extended to trigonometry 
and other branches connected with surveying. Attending 
school in both summer and winter, and being favored with 
good teachers, he made rapid progress. He also wrote ver- 
ses, learned to sketch, and joined a country debating society. 
When a little more than seventeen years old he taught 
school for two months in Londonderry valley. 

In May, 1848, Alexander left home to become a clerk in 



ALEXANDER CHESTERFIELD MULLIN. 115 

the store of his baclielor uncle, David Hammer, at Holli- 
daysburg, Blair county. It may be incidentally mentioned 
here that Joseph Hammer, another uncle, was for several 
years, from about 1849 to 1852, the landlord of Bennett's 
Hotel, at Johnstown, for whom and for his excellent family 
the old citizens of the town cherish most pleasant recollec- 
tions. Alexander's engagement with his uncle did not, how- 
ever, long continue, for, after four months' experience in 
his store, and when just eighteen years old, we find him, in 
September, taking charge of the lumber interests of Robert 
Lytle at Wilmore, in Cambria county, who also kept a 
store at the same place, in which William C. Barbour was 
a clerk. Robert Lytle was a resident of Hollidaysburg. In 
April, 1849, Alexander was offered by George Murray a 
clerkship in his store at Summerhill, in Cambria county, 
which offer was accepted, and in the latter part of the 
month he entered upon his new duties. The situation 
proved to be a pleasant one, and for three years it was 
filled by Alexander with great satisfaction to his employer. 
At Summerhill Alexander continued in his leisure hours 
the study of mathematics and Latin, being greatly aided by 
an educated Irish shoemaker named George G. Higgins, 
who had spent many years of his life on the ocean. Hav- 
ing thus obtained a part of that additional education he 
had longed for when he left home, and having acquired 
considerable business experience, he resolved to study law, 
and accordingly, in November, 1851, he entered his name 
as a student with Edward Hutchinson, Jr., a prominent 
member of the Ebensburg bar. He began immediately the 
usual course of legal studies, and from this time on until 
May, 1852, while still remaining at Summerhill, his time 
was about equally divided between these studies and the 
settlement of Mr. Murray's business, which had for a num- 
ber of years been very extensive. At the time last named 
above Alexander, then familiarly known as " Aleck," but 
whom I shall hereafter call Mr. Mullin, went to Ebensburg, 
with the double purpose of prosecuting his legal studies 
under the direction of Mr. Hutchinson and acting as clerk 
to the prothonotary of the county, Robert L. Johnston, who 
had solicited his assistance in rearranging all the records of 



116 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

the office since the organization of the county in 1807. Mr. 
Mullin's skill as an accountant and bookkeeper and the 
elegance and neatness of his penmanship had by this time 
become generally known throughout Cambria county, and 
Mr. Johnston's choice of him as an assistant was therefore 
wisely made and proved to be very popular. At that day 
the duties of the prothonotary's office embraced the record- 
ing of deeds and also the registering of wills. Mr. Mullin 
remained with Mr. Johnston until the close of the latter's 
term of office in the fall of 1854, when they entered into 
partnership, the style of the firm being Johnston & Mullin. 
This partnership continued for five years. 

On the 27th day of October, 1852, Mr. Mullin was mar- 
ried at Williamsburg by Rev. John Thrush to Miss Emma 
Matilda Kennedy, a native of Perry county, Pennsylvania, 
but at the time a resident of Rockdale, Blair county. 

In August, 1853, the want of a Whig newspaper at 
Ebensburg having long been felt, Mr. Mullin and a friend 
of about his own age, named Charles Albright, since well 
known to fame as a lawyer, soldier, and politician, but then 
a student in the law office of Mr. Johnston, were induced, 
under the firm name of Mullin & Albright, to establish The 
Alleghanian. The paper was a weekly, of six columns, well 
printed, and from the first was well edited. Coming into 
■existence during a heated canvass for a seat in the State 
Senate from the district composed of Cambria, Blair, and 
Huntingdon counties The Alleghanian took decided ground 
against the candidacy of Alexander M. White, of Cambria 
county, who had secured the nomination by the Whig sena- 
torial conference. So vigorous was its opposition that Mr. 
White was defeated by the Democratic nominee, John Cres- 
well, Jr., of Hollidaysburg, although the district, by convic- 
tion, belonged to the Whigs. The bitterness of the contest 
was carried into the courts, where legal ^proceedings were 
inaugurated, but nothing of moment came of them. The 
course of The Alleghanian in this matter was generally jus- 
tified by the leading Whigs of the district. The connection 
•of Mullin & Albright with the paper was continued until 
1854, when they were succeeded in its publication by J. R. 
Durburrow and he soon afterwards by John M. Bowman. 



ALEXANDER CHESTERFIELD MULLIN. 117 

At December term, 1853, of the Cambria county courts 
Mr. MuUin was admitted to the bar, on motion of Michael 
Dan Magellan, with whom had been associated Henry D. 
Foster and James Potts on the committee of examination. 
Hon. George Taylor, president judge, and Hon. Evan Rob- 
erts and Hon. Harrison Kinkead, associates, were on the 
bench. The bar of Cambria county in 1853 was one of 
great native and reflected ability. Of the resident members 
I can remember Edward Hutchinson, Jr., Robert L. Johns- 
ton, Charles H. Heyer, John S. Rhey, Michael Dan Mage- 
han, Joseph McDonald, ]\Iichael Hasson, John Fenlon, Cyrus 
L. Pershing, James Potts, Abram Kopelin, Theophilus L. 
Heyer, Moses Canan, William Kittell, Samuel C. Wingard, 
Charles W. AVingard, George M. Reade, John F. Barnes, and 
Charles D. Murray — not all good lawyers, it is true, but as a 
body they formed the best bar the county could ever boast. 
Of visiting lawyers from neighboring counties there were 
John G. Miles and John Scott, of Huntingdon ; S. S. Blair 
and David H. Hofius, of Blair ; Thomas AVhite, of Indiana ; 
and Henry D. Foster, Edgar Cowan, and Wm. A. Stokes, of 
Westmoreland. These men were all able lawyers. The bench 
was more than respectable. Judge Taylor was one of the 
ablest judges in the State and the associates were men of 
high social standing and good judgment. Mr. Mullin came 
to the bar under most favorable circumstances. 

Mr. Mullin had a strong inclination to engage in the 
excitements and to enjo}^ some of the rewards of political 
life. Thus we find him in 1855 the candidate of the new 
American party for treasurer of Cambria county, but he 
was beaten, in a contest hopeless from the beginning, by 
Charles D. Murray, Democrat. In 1856 he was the Union 
Republican candidate for the State Senate in the Cambria, 
Blair, and Huntingdon district, but was defeated by John 
Creswell, Jr., of Blair, although running ahead of his ticket 
in his own county. In 1857 he was selected by the unani- 
mous vote of the judges of the Cambria, Blair, and Hunting- 
don judicial district as a member of the State board of rev- 
enue revision. In this position he so skillfully protected the 
interests of his constituents that a proposition to increase 
their taxes, made by Hendrick B. Wright, a member of the 



118 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

board, and supported by others, was so amended as to 
effect an actual lowering of them. In 1859 he re-estab- 
lished The AUeghanian, the publication of which had been 
discontinued some time previously, and at once made it a 
vigorous exponent of Republican principles. He owned the 
paper and was its editor, but its publication was intrusted 
to two young men whose firm name was Bolsinger & Hutch- 
inson. In a brief time this firm was dissolved, and J. Todd 
Hutchinson continued the publication of the paper, with 
Mr. Mullin as owner and editor. Mr. Mullin's connection 
with The AUeghanian continued until 1861, when he sold it 
to A. A. Barker, who retained Mr. Hutchinson as publisher. 

In the fall of 1860 Mr. Mullin was chosen a Represent- 
ative from Cambria county to the Pennsylvania Legisla- 
ture. The contest in which he was the successful candidate 
was a quadrangular one — George Nelson Smith representing 
the Douglas Democrats, Michael Dan Magellan the Breckin- 
ridge Democrats, James Potts the advocates of a new county, 
and Mr. Mullin the Union Republicans. The plurality of 
Mr. Mullin over his highest opponent, Major Smith, was a 
little less than 300. 

The Legislature met on the 1st of January, 1861, and 
Mr. Mullin was present. Upon the organization of the 
House he was assigned to the committee on ways and 
means and to the committee on new counties and county 
seats. The assignment to the first of these committees 
would have conveyed a very high compliment under or- 
dinary legislative circumstances, but a contingency soon to 
happen, and dreaded when the session opened, made the po- 
sition one of great responsibility and importance. We were 
drifting into a war with the Southern States, and the atti- 
tude which Pennsylvania should take in the struggle, and 
the strength and resolution with which she should maintain 
that attitude, largely depended upon the ways and means 
committee of the House of Representatives. During the 
regular session, and the special session which soon followed 
it, Mr. Mullin supported every measure of legislation that 
was designed to sustain the power of the Federal Govern- 
ment, including the bill to borrow money and the bill to 
organize and equip the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps. He 



ALEXANDER CHESTERFIELD MULLIN. 119 

had no patience with the Peace Conference or with any 
other temporizing expedient. 

As a legislator Mr. Miillin paid strict attention to the 
interests of his constituents. Of the bills which were con- 
sidered during the session eighteen were passed through his 
instrumentality. Some of the bills that were introduced 
and passed by Mr, Mullin were of considerable local im- 
portance. One of these gave greatly needed relief to the 
Cambria Iron Company and enabled the lessees, Messrs. 
Wood, Morrell & Co., to continue the works in operation 
during many months which would otherwise have been 
lost to them and their workmen. 

After the adjournment of the Legislature in the spring 
of 1861 Mr. Mullin continued the practice of his profession 
until September, 1862, when he was appointed private sec- 
retary to Governor Curtin. He never again regularly prac- 
ticed his profession. Retaining his home at Ebensburg he 
immediately assumed at Harrisburg the most arduous and 
responsible duties of his life. A great war was in progress 
and the State of Pennsylvania took no insignificant part 
in the contest. The duties of the Governor were increased 
many fold, and to aid him in the performance of his diffi- 
cult task the service of the best executive and administra- 
tive talent of the State was called into requisition. The 
choice of a private secretary could not have been more hap- 
pily made than in the selection of Mr. Mullin. He remained 
with the Governor until after the close of the war, during 
part of the time assisting to discharge the duties of master 
of transportation in addition to those of private secretary. 

It is a pleasure to me to record here an incident which 
illustrates the friendly personal relations which have always 
in a large degree existed between leading members of op- 
posing political parties in Cambria county. Cyrus L. Per- 
shing represented Cambria county in the lower branch of 
the Legislature in 1862 and was consulted l)y Governor 
Curtin concerning the appointment of Mr. Mullin as private 
secretary. Mr. Pershing assured the Governor that he could 
find no person better adapted to the duties of the position 
than Mr. Mullin and that he could implicitly rely upon 
his fidelity. 



120 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS, 

Soon after peace had come Mr, Mullin decided to re- 
linquish the onerous duties at Harrisburg which had grad- 
ually affected his health and accordingly resigned the office 
of private secretary to the Governor on the 1st of May, 
1865, to embark in business in Philadelphia, He after- 
wards looked upon the decision to go to Philadelphia as a 
mistake and regretted bitterly that he did not return to 
the practice of law among his old friends at Ebensburg, 
But the times were abnormal and the wild wave of specu- 
lation swept the best and coolest men before it, Mr. Mullin 
had, while at Harrisburg, made some small investments in 
the stocks of the day which proved to be profitable, and 
this experience, joined to the unsatisfactory condition of his 
health, was the impelling motive which led him to yield 
to the liberal offers of some of his friends that he should 
go to Philadelphia to exercise a general supervision over 
several speculative enterprises in which they were interest- 
ed. He went, but the enterprises of his friends, as well as 
some investments of his own, met with disaster. 

In May, 1866, the position of chief clerk of the State 
Department at Harrisburg became vacant and Mr. Mullin 
was appointed to the vacancy. His predecessor, William W, 
Hays, had been promoted to be Deputy Secretary of the 
Commonwealth, but the health of this gentleman was so 
seriously impaired that many of the duties of his new office 
fell to the lot of Mr. Mullin, in addition to the laborious 
exactions of the chief clerkship. The preparation of par- 
dons was included in Mr, Mullin 's extraordinary duties. 
All the correspondence of the State Department he either 
directed or performed. The pamphlet laws of 1866, the 
most voluminous ever published, he edited. 

In the latter part of September, 1866, Mr, Mullin was 
appointed by President Johnson collector of internal revenue 
for the seventeenth district of Pennsylvania, with his office 
at Ebensburg, relieving Samuel J. Royer, of Johnstown, and 
at once entered upon his duties. Political feeling had been 
deeply stirred by the antagonism existing between the Pres- 
ident and the party which had elected him, and to the 
impatience of the Republicans with the President's alleged 
arbitrary exercise of power in removing faithful Republican 



ALEXANDER CHESTERFIELD MULLIN. 121 

officials may mainly be attributed the failure of the Senate 
in March following to confirm Mr. Mullin's appointment. 
This rejection of Mr. Mullin's appointment was an unfor- 
tunate event in his life. Soon after his rejection he closed 
his accounts as collector and paid over to the deputy col- 
lector of the district the money remaining in his hands. 

After the termination of the episode which has just been 
described Mr. Mullin was about to resume the practice of 
law when he was offered and accepted the position of cash- 
ier of the Dime Savings Institution of Ashland, Schuylkill 
count}'', which had just been chartered. Of this bank Peter 
F. Collins, of Ebensburg, was president. The name of the 
bank was changed a year or two later to the Ashland Sav- 
ings Bank. Mr. Mulhn sold his house in Ebensburg and 
removed his family to Ashland in the fall of 1867. In 1870 
he became president of the bank, Mr. Collins retiring, and he 
remained in this position until the spring of 1875, when the 
bank failed through the pressure of many adverse circum- 
stances, most of which had their origin in the Jay Cooke 
panic of 1873. The severity of the crisis which caused Mr. 
Mullin to close his bank is seen in the fact that most of 
the neighboring banks afterwards passed out of existence. 

Toward the latter part of 1875 Mr. Mullin, having no 
promising future before him in Ashland, began to think 
of removing to Philadelphia. In March, 1876, after residing 
eight years and a half in Ashland, he was appointed secre- 
tary of the Pennsylvania Board of Centennial Managers, of 
which Morton McMichael was chairman and Andrew G. 
Curtin, Asa Packer, Daniel J. Morrell, John H. Shoenber- 
ger, George Scott, and Foster W. Mitchell were associates. 
Mr. Mullin at once removed his family to Philadelphia. 
He was laboriously engaged in the performance of his 
new duties until the spring of 1878, when the functions of 
the board virtually terminated with the presentation to the 
Pennsylvania Legislature by the Governor of Mr. Mullin's 
admirable report, printed in two handsome octavo volumes, 
detailing the work of the board and the part taken by 
Pennsylvania in connection wuth the Centennial Exhibition. 

I now take up some incidents in the life of Mr. Mullin 
of a more private character than those already mentioned. 



122 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

He had a fondness for military life. At Summerhill, 
about September, 1849, when only nineteen years old, he 
assisted in forming the Quitman Guards, a volunteer compa- 
ny, of which William M. Ott, who had been in the Mexican 
war, was elected captain. The company was organized by 
Major John Linton, of Johnstown, brigade inspector. Mr. 
Mullin was at first a private in the company but soon rose 
to be second lieutenant and then first lieutenant. He was 
offered the captaincy in 1852, which he was obliged to de- 
cline, as he was about to leave Summerhill for Ebensburg. 
William C. Barbour became captain of the company until 
it was disbanded a few years afterwards. The Quitman 
Guards always celebrated the national anniversaries with 
great spirit. I am reminded by Judge Pershing that Lieu- 
tenant Mullin delivered an oration on a 4th of July which 
the Guards assisted to celebrate and that it was published 
in one or more of the county newspapers. Many members 
of the Guards entered the Union army and rendered their 
country good service. 

Mr. Mullin possessed decided literary tastes and literary 
talent of a high order. When fourteen years old he wrote 
Whig campaign songs and negro melodies which are yet 
remembered in Bedford county. Throughout his whole life 
he wrote verses — humorous, satirical, lyrical, and elegiac. 

While at Ebensburg Mr. Mullin not only assisted in es- 
tablishing Tlie AUeghanian, which he edited with true jour- 
nalistic insight for several years, but he also attached him- 
self to a good literary society of which he long continued 
an active member and was frequently its presiding officer. 
The society maintained a literary paper, and of this Mr. 
Mullin was at various times the editor. In the pamphlet 
laws of 1866 and in his masterly Centennial report the tact 
and judgment of the born editor are plainly seen. He al- 
ways wrote gracefully and rapidly, knew a good word from 
a bad one, and could quit when he was done. Mr. Mullin 
was an ardent lover of the English classics. Shakespeare 
and Dickens were his favorite authors, and he knew them 
well. He was well versed in the history of his country and 
was familiar with the careers of its leading men. 

When a boy Mr. Mullin evinced a strong passion for 



ALEXANDER CHESTERFIELD MULLIN. 123 

sketching and painting, but this taste was but slightly- 
gratified until years afterwards, when he painted in oil sev- 
eral pictures of much merit. I can not praise too highly 
his artistic achievements in ornamental penmanship. He 
was one of the best penmen who ever resided in Cambria 
county, and in purely ornamental work with the pen he 
had few, if any, superiors in the State. 

Mr. Mullin was a public-spirited citizen of Ebensburg 
while he lived there. At various times he served as a mem- 
ber of its school board and town council. In 1857 he was 
largely instrumental in creating the Cambria County Mutu- 
al Fire Insurance Company, of which he was secretary and 
treasurer. He also rendered valuable assistance in securing 
in July, 1862, the completion of the Ebensburg Branch of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad, the construction of which was 
commenced about 1858. This assistance he was enabled to 
give while a member of the Legislature in 1861. 

Of Mr. Mullin's legal abilities and legal attainments it is 
enough to say that he won deserved praise from the bench 
and the bar for the accuracy and neatness of all legal in- 
struments which emanated from his hand. So well estab- 
lished was his reputation as a well-read lawyer, and as an 
accomplished expert in the preparation of legal documents, 
that in 1866 all the members of the bar of the twenty- 
fourth judicial district, embracing Cambria, Blair, and Hunt- 
ingdon counties, signed a recommendation that he be ap- 
pointed reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania. The appointment, however, went to another. 

The social qualities of Mr. Mullin were of a very high 
order and he was greatly favored with rare opportunities 
for their development. When he went to Ebensburg, in 
addition to making acquaintance with the wit and learning 
of the bar, the medical fraternity was composed of Dr. 
AVilliam A. Smith, Dr. David W. Lewis, and Dr. William 
Lemon. Ezekiel Hughes, Edward Shoemaker, and Johnston 
Moore were leading business men. Major John Thompson 
kept the leading hotel of the place and his estimable fam- 
ily was then intact. Then there were the Noons, the Rheys, 
the Collinses, the McDonalds, and many other excellent 
families, embracing talented men and accomplished women. 



124 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 



SAMUEL BELL McCORMICK. 



COMMUNICATED TO THE JOHNSTOWN TEIBUNE IN APEIL, 
1901, DURING ME. McCOEMICK'S LIFETIME. 



Recent references in the columns of the Tribune to the 
old-time schools and school teachers of Johnstown and its 
vicinity prompt me to compile from data in my possession 
the leading facts in the career of Samuel Bell McCormick^ 
a noted teacher of fifty years ago in Johnstown. 

S. B. McCormick, as he has always written his name,, 
was born on a farm a short distance south of what is now 
Larimer Station, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, in West- 
moreland county, on June 18, 1817. His father, Andrew 
McCormick, w^as a native of the north of Ireland and came 
to this country with his father, John McCormick, and the 
remainder of the family in 1790, when he was six years- 
old. The McCormicks came directly from Ireland to Lari- 
mer with a large colony of Scotch-Irish, the Griers, the Bax- 
ters, the Boyds, the Irwins, and others. They built a church 
on Matthew Osborn's land, and there are yet in the church- 
yard forty tombstones of McCormicks, although the church 
was torn down long ago, S. B. McCormick's mother, whose 
maiden name was Ann Campbell, the daughter of James 
Campbell, at one time a rich and prosperous Philadelphia 
merchant, w^as born in Philadelphia in 1786. The Camp- 
bells were also Scotch-Irish, James Campbell coming from 
the north of Ireland to this country before the Revolution. 
In course of time James Campbell, with his family, also^ 
moved to Western Pennsylvania, the Campbells finally set- 
tling in the Redstone settlement on the Monongahela river. 
We give these details partly to illustrate the prominence of 
the Scotch-Irish element in the early settlement of Western 
Pennsylvania. 

Andrew McCormick became the owner of a piece of land 
near Larimer Station. From the Larimer farm Mr. Mc- 



SAMUEL BELL McCORMICK. 125 

■Cormick's father moved to Murrysville, where the family 
resided for seven years. Thence Andrew McCormick moved 
to Warsaw, in Jefferson county, in 1835, and died there. 

S. B. McCormick was almost wholly self-educated. He 
was never a student at either a college or an academy. 
'Gifted with an acute intellect, ambitious, and studious, he 
was not satisfied with the limited opportunities afforded by 
the subscription schools of his day and aspired to better 
things. He studied geometry with his oldest brother, Latin 
w^ith a preacher named Marshall and with the Reverend W. 
W. Woodend, Greek with Thomas B. Keenan, and astrono- 
my without any assistance except that which he first ob- 
tained from a "geography of the heavens." When Mr. 
McCormick was a young man land surveying was one of 
the learned professions ; a surveyor of farms and roads was 
£i person of consequence ; so S. B. McCormick studied sur- 
veying with an expert surveyor in Brook ville, Jefferson 
•county, after the family had removed to that county. But 
prior to going to Jefferson county Mr. McCormick began 
in Westmoreland county his life work as a teacher. 

S. B. McCormick's father was an Associate Reformed 
Presbyterian, and having many religious books the son 
was posted in Bible history and theological questions. For 
^ time, soon after he had commenced teaching, he was a 
member of Dr. David Kirkpatrick's Bible class at Poke 
Kun Presbyterian church. 

In 1840 Mr. McCormick taught school near New Alex- 
andria, Westmoreland county. One of his pupils was the 
present Judge A. D. McConnell, of Greensburg, who learned 
his A B C's at Mr. McCormick's knee. About 1844 Mr. 
McCormick began the study of law with Hon. Joseph H, 
Kuhns, of Greensburg, at one time a Whig member of 
Congress, and was admitted to the Westmoreland bar on 
September 3, 1846. On September 5, 1846, he was married 
to Eliza Kemp and moved to Ligonier, where he taught 
school, practiced law, and started a newspaper. In 1852, 
with his wife and two children, he moved to Johnstown and 
began his career as a Cambria county teacher. From that 
time until his removal to California in 1874 he taught 
school at Johnstown and Millville, except during a period 



126 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

of five years when he served as superintendent of common 
schools for Cambria county. Mr. McCormick lives at Oak- 
dale, Stanislaus county, California, where for many years 
he was a local magistrate, with the honorary title of judge. 
He taught school for two years at Oakdale. His son, Win- 
field Scott McCormick, had preceded him to Oakdale. 

Mr. McCormick 's long career as a teacher in Johnstown 
was a most honorable one. Thoroughly understanding all 
the branches of study that were embraced in the sensible- 
common-school course of those days he was very successful 
in leading his classes up the hill of science and in develop- 
ing in hundreds of boys and girls who are now getting to 
be old men and women the ambition to do their best in the 
school-room and in the wider spheres which they were soon 
to enter. For several years he was superintendent of the 
Johnstown schools. He was also principal of the Mill- 
ville schools for three or four years. He had a special 
liking for astronomy and often lectured upon this subject. 

In November, 1852, soon after his removal from Ligo- 
nier to Johnstown, and while teaching at the head of Main 
street, Mr. McCormick undertook the publication of a 
weekly Whig newspaper, The Cambrian, which he continued 
until about the close of the political campaign in the fall 
of 1853, when its publication was discontinued. The print- 
ing materials were owned by some of the leading Whigs of 
the town. The Cambria Tribune was established in Decem- 
ber, 1853, immediately after Mr. McCormick's retirement. 
With a decided literary bent and possessed of considerable 
skill as a newspaper controversialist Mr. McCormick could 
not successfully teach school and edit a newspaper, either 
at Ligonier or Johnstown, nor could anybody. 

The common school system of Pennsylvania was not 
fully developed until 1854, on May 8 of which year an 
act of the General Assembly was approved by Governor 
William Bigler which established the office of county super- 
intendent. The act took effect the same year. Robert L. 
Johnston was the first superintendent for Cambria county 
and Mr. McCormick was the second. I copy below from 
the oflBcial record a list of the persons who have held this 
office in Cambria county from 1854 to the present time. 



SAMUEL BELL MCCORMICK. 127 

Robert L. Johnston, elected ; commissioned July 5, 1 854 ; 
resigned in 1855 ; salary per annum, $400. S. B. McCor- 
mick, appointed ; commissioned October 6, 1855 ; salary, 
$400. S. B. McCormick, elected for three years ; commis- 
sioned June 3, 1857 ; salary, $800. Thomas A. Maguire, 
elected ; commissioned July 17, 1860 ; salary, $800. James 
M. Swank, appointed ; commissioned February 7, 1861 ; re- 
signed in November, 1861 ; salary, $800. Wm. A. Scott, ap- 
pointed ; commissioned January 4, 1862 ; salary, $800 ; re- 
signed to enter the Union army ; killed at Fredericksburg. 
Henry Ely, appointed ; commissioned August 13, 1862 ; sal- 
ary, $800. J. Frank Condon, elected ; commissioned June 
1, 1863 ; salary, $800 ; J. Frank Condon, re-elected ; commis- 
sioned June 4, 1866 ; salary, $1,000 ; resigned in 1867. T. 
J. Chapman, appointed ; commissioned October 1, 1867. T. 
J. Chapman, elected ; commissioned June 4, 1869 ; salary, 
$1,000. T. J. Chapman, re-elected ; commissioned June 6, 
1872 ; salary, $1,000. Hartman Berg, elected ; commissioned 
June 7, 1875 ; salary, $1,000 ; re-elected ; commissioned June, 
1878. L. Strayer, elected ; commissioned June, 1881 ; salary 
fixed by the number of schools, which varied the amount 
of salary each year, averaging about $1,100 ; re-elected June, 
1884. W. J. Cramer, elected June, 1887 ; salary, $1,500. Su- 
perintendent Cramer died on January 23, 1888, and J. W. 
Leech was appointed and commissioned to fill the unexpired 
term. J. W. Leech was elected and commissioned June, 1890 ; 
salary, $1,500 ; re-elected June, 1893 ; salary, $1,700. T. L. 
Gibson, elected and commissioned June, 1896 ; salary, $1,- 
700 ; re-elected June, 1899 ; salary, $1,700. 

It will be seen from the above record that Mr. McCor- 
mick served as county superintendent for five years. The 
services rendered by him in this office were important and 
valuable. Other superintendents have done good work, but 
he was virtually the pioneer in a position of great oppor- 
tunities and of great responsibility. He was industrious, en- 
thusiastic, tactful, and capable. It was his lot not only to 
popularize his own office and its authority but the common 
school system itself. To accomplish these results he visited 
every school district in the county and became personally 
acquainted with directors and taxpayers as well as teachers ; 



128 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

he visited the schools and made interesting speeches to the 
children ; his oral examinations of applicants for teachers' 
certificates were always fair and were held in nearly every 
town and township in the county and in the presence of 
citizens and taxpayers. He thus demonstrated the useful- 
ness of his office. He inspired others with his own enthu- 
siasm. He encouraged the holding of school exhibitions 
in every school district and he personally attended most of 
them. These exhibitions, which usually took place in the 
spring of the year, joined to his personal participation in 
them, had a marvelous effect in creating and sustaining an 
interest in common schools in Cambria county. Taxes for 
their support were more freely paid, better methods of in- 
struction were introduced, better teachers were employed, 
better school-houses were built, and a healthier tone per- 
vaded all educational conditions. Mr. McCormick's term of 
office expired just as the niutterings of civil strife came up 
from the South, and there was subsequently much demor- 
alization in the administration of the schools of Cambria 
county, as elsewhere, but this demoralization did not long 
continue, Mr. McCormick's good work was not lost. 

In a letter which I have recently received from Mr. Mc- 
Cormick he writes that he still does some literary work and 
that not long ago he contributed to a local newspaper a 
series of twelve articles on his favorite science of astronomy. 
Two children and several grandchildren are either with 
him or are not far aw^ay. A married daughter, Lenore, now 
lives in Germantown, Pennsylvania. 

Mr. McCormick died on May 1, 1903, at Oakdale, Stanislaus county, 
California, and was buried in the Union cemetery at that place. He 
was 85 years, 10 months, and 13 days old — a good old age. 




A REMINISCENCE OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 129 



A REMINISCENCE OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 



FROM THE BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL 
ASSOCIATION, JUNE 15, 1909. 



Zachary Taylor, the twelfth President of the United 
States, occupied this position from the day of his inaugu- 
ration on March 5, 1849, until his death on July 9, 1850. In 
August, 1849, just sixty years ago, accompanied by a small 
party of prominent gentlemen, he journeyed in a carriage 
over the turnpikes of that day from Washington to Pitts- 
burgh, thence visiting a few other interior cities before re- 
turning to AVashington. His carriage route through Penn- 
sylvania embraced Bedford, Somerset, Westmoreland, and Al- 
legheny counties and the towns of Bedford, Somerset, Ligo- 
nier, and Greensburg. The President's itinerary was duly 
announced several days in advance, and of course excited 
much interest. The countryside was on tiptoe to see the 
hero of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and 
Buena Vista. 

The editor of the Bulletin was at that time one of the 
enthusiastic young Whigs of Johnstown. • Learning that the 
President and his party would be at Ligonier on a certain 
day and would stop there for dinner we induced two of 
our friends, boys of about our own age, to go with us to 
Ligonier and see the President. Now Ligonier was twenty 
miles away, and the only way to get there was on horse- 
back over a mountain road, and if we were to see the Presi- 
dent before dinner it was necessary that we should make an 
early start. So we started before daylight, three enthusias- 
tic boys, and about 10 o'clock we were in Ligonier, to which 
historic town many neighboring farmers had preceded us 
on the same mission. Introducing ourselves to Mr. Mendell, 
the landlord of the leading public house in the place, we 
were most hospitably received. He was surprised to learn 
that we had ridden so far. In less than an hour the car- 



130 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

riages of the Presidential party were seen approaching in a 
cloud of dust and in a few minutes we boys first saw a 
President of the United States and one of our country's 
greatest soldiers. 

Preparations for dinner were soon made for the distin- 
guished guests, who were informally welcomed by Mr. Men- 
dell, John Bell, a local ironmaster, and others. When dinner 
was about to be served we boys obtained a view of the din- 
ing room, which would seat about thirty and certainly not 
more than forty guests at one long table, but we did not 
think that we could sit at that table until the Presidential 
party and the local dignitaries had first been served. We 
were greatly surprised, therefore, when Mr. Mendell came to 
us and said that boys who had risen so early and ridden so 
far to see General Taylor should sit at the same table with 
him. And we did. Mr. Bell sat at the head of the table,, 
the President on his right, and we boys not quite half way 
down the table on Mr. Bell's left. 

After dinner General Taylor was induced to mount a 
chair in a corner of the parlor of the Mendell House and 
make an address to all who could crowd inside or hear 
him through the open windows. Soon afterwards the Presi- 
dential party took its departure from Ligonier and we boys 
started homeward. That incident in our lives when we 
dined with President Taylor occurred just sixty years ago. 
There can not be many persons now living who can say 
that they dined with General Taylor that long ago. 




JOHN FRITZ, IRONMASTER. 131 



JOHN FRITZ, IRONMASTER. 



READ AT THE DINNER TO MR. FRITZ, ON NOVEMBER 17, 
1910, BY THE MANUFACTURERS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



My acquaintance with Mr. Fritz began in 1855, fifty- 
five years ago, when he came to Johnstown as the general 
superintendent of the Cambria Iron Works, which had been 
leased on May 15 of that year for a term of five years by 
the firm of Wood, Morrell & Co. These works had been 
built in 1853 and 1854 by the Cambria Iron Company as 
an iron rail mill, with several blast furnaces. They made 
their first rail on July 27, 1854. Only iron rails were made 
in this country for several years afterwards. The lease was 
extended in 1860 for one year and terminated in 1861. 

A great problem confronted Mr. Fritz. He had to so 
manage the works as to make them a financial as well as 
a mechanical success. He succeeded in both undertakings. 
In 1856, the year following his assumption of this difficult 
task, the Cambria Iron Works rolled 13,206 tons of rails, 
and their annual production was thereafter increased under 
Mr. Fritz's management. The production in 1856 was only 
5,386 tons less than the largest production of any rail mill 
in the country in that year — the mill of the Phoenix Iron 
Company rolling 18,592 tons. Those were the days of com- 
paratively small outputs at iron and steel works. 

When Mr. Fritz took charge of the Cambria Iron Works 
he soon discovered that good rails could not be made from 
pig iron that had been made entirely from Cambria ores ; 
so, after much tribulation, he introduced a mixture of Cam- 
bria and other pig iron which worked well and produced 
good results. 

But Mr. Fritz was not satisfied with the results he was 
accomplishing. The Cambria rail mill was equipped with 
two-high rolls, and as these could not be operated as sat- 
isfactorily as was desirable, and besides often invited acci- 



132 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

dents, Mr. Fritz conceived the idea of introducing three-high 
rolls, which had never before been used in any country in 
the manufacture of rails. This was done, and on July 3, 
1857, the innovation proved to be a great success. "Mr. Fritz 
had conspicuously shown his skill as an engineer. Soon 
there were three-high trains of rolls in all the rail mills of 
the country. 

But a great trial came to Mr. Fritz the day after his 
successful use of three-high rolls. On July 4 the Cambria 
Iron Works burned down. We well remember that catas- 
trophe. All but the stoutest hearts were appalled. But Mr. 
Fritz was equal to the emergency. He infused courage into 
the breasts of all his men, and at once began the work of 
clearing away the debris and rebuilding the works. In pre- 
cisely four weeks the new works were running, and they 
made 30,000 tons of rails before any interruption occurred 
from any cause whatever. 

Mr. Fritz was surrounded at Johnstown by a remarkably 
bright collection of engineers and mechanics, all young men, 
who gave him loyal support but who also learned much 
from him. They were long known as John Fritz's "boys." 
We can mention only a few of them : Jacob M. Campbell, 
Alexander Hamilton, George Fritz, William R. Jones, Daniel 
N. Jones, William Canam, James Bell, and Thomas H. Laps- 
ley. They are all gone. Robert W. Hunt, the first chemist 
of the Cambria Iron Works, who is with us to-night, came 
to Johnstown just as Mr. Fritz left for Bethlehem. 

Mr. Fritz's connection with the Cambria Iron Works 
continued until July, 1860, when he resigned to superintend 
the erection and operation of the Bethlehem Iron Works, 
to embrace a number of blast furnaces and a rolling mill 
to roll iron rails. The rolling mill was successfully started 
in 1863. In 1873 Mr. Fritz introduced at these works the 
manufacture of Bessemer steel and Bessemer steel rails, and 
in 1890 he made for the Navy Department at the works 
of the Bethlehem Steel Company the first heavy armor 
plate that had ever been made in this country. The ar- 
mor plate plant of this company had been built under Mr. 
Fritz's direction. 

A few years ago Mr. Fritz retired from all active par- 



JOHN FRITZ, IRONMASTER. 133 

ticipation in the management of iron and steel works, after 
more than fifty years of unbroken success, which success 
has brought him many honors. Included in these honors- 
we may mention honorary membership in the British Iron 
and Steel Institute, which has conferred upon Mr. Fritz the 
Bessemer gold medal. We may also mention a magnificent 
banquet which was tendered to Mr. Fritz by a large num- 
ber of prominent engineers and iron and steel manufac- 
turers at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in October^ 
1902, in celebration of his 80th birthday anniversary. 

But we feel sure that no honor that has ever come to 
Mr. Fritz has given him more heartfelt pleasure than the 
testimonial which he received at Johnstown on Jul}^ 4, 1860^ 
immediately prior to his departure for his new field of labor 
at Bethlehem. On that day a superb set of silverware was 
presented to Mr. Fritz at the rolling mill of the Cambria 
Iron Works by the employes of Wood, Morrell & Co. Be- 
tween 1,500 and 2,000 persons were present at the presenta- 
tion, including many ladies. The presence of this army of 
workmen and citizens testified to the esteem in which Mr. 
Fritz was held by the whole community. The set of silver- 
ware included a remarkably handsome water pitcher. On 
it were inscribed these words : "To John Fritz, Esq., Gen- 
eral Superintendent of the Cambria Iron Works, as a Testi- 
monial, by the Employees. July 4, 1860." This pitcher was 
exhibited at the New York crystal palace during the World's 
Fair in 1853, and it took the first premium as the finest 
piece of silverware among many specimens that had been 
collected from all parts of the world. Several addresses were 
delivered, Mr. Fritz thanking the donors, as the Cambria 
Tribune said, "in a very feeling, frank, and earnest speech. "^ 

The Tribune devoted much space to an account of the 
testimonial to Mr. Fritz, remarking at the close of the ac- 
count that " the gift is but properly in keeping with the 
measure of the man," and that " in ]\Ir. Fritz the company 
and this community lose a man and citizen whose place is 
not easily filled." Mr. Fritz was then 38 years old. He had 
been general superintendent of the Cambria Iron Works 
for five years. He was succeeded by his brother, George 
Fritz. 



134 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS, 

There is one trait in Mr. Fritz's character which does 
him especial honor — his readiness on all occasions to give 
credit to the thousands of men subject to his orders who 
have contributed by their skill and loyalty to his remark- 
able success. In an address by Mr. Fritz on the 75th an- 
niversary of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia on Oc- 
tober 4, 1899, he said : " Here I wish to say that I should 
commit an act of ingratitude should I fail to give credit 
to the brave and noble workmen who throughout my long 
connection with the business have ever stood ready to meet 
any emergency, no matter what the danger or difficulty 
might be. For the kind and generous manner in which 
I was always treated by them they ever have a green spot 
in my memory." This is a gracious compliment from Mr. 
Fritz to his old companions in many a bitter struggle with 
engineering and mechanical problems that tested the skill 
and manhood of all of them, and it is most gracefully ex- 
pressed. 

In the same address, embodying a note of strenuous 
personal experience, Mr. Fritz also said : " How little do the 
younger men who have charge of the great iron and steel 
industries know or even think of the severe mental strain, 
the great amount of bodily labor, the vexation, the sur- 
prises, and the disappointments that the men in charge 
experienced during the perfecting and erection of these 
vast establishments that are now engaged in the manufac- 
ture of iron and steel." 

We are all glad to see Mr. Fritz looking so well to- 
night. He has hosts of absent friends who would share 
this pleasure if they were here.* I know of no man in 
the iron trade who has been so universally respected and 
loved as John Fritz. His personal qualities have been as 
lovable as his engineering achievements have been notable. 



* In a letter to the president of the Manufacturers' Chib expressing 
his regret that he could not participate in the testimonial to his old 
friend Mr. Carnegie said: "Pray convey to dear Uncle John my warm- 
est regards and congratulations upon his honored old age. Many are 
the men who on this occasion would join in giving three cheers for 
Uncle John ! I am sure he has not an enemy in the world and he 
has given to all of us a noble example." 



A LESSON FROM THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 135 



. A LESSON FROM THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 



WRITTEN IN JUNE, 1889, AFTER WITNESSING THE DESTRUC- 
TION CAUSED BY THE FLOOD OF MAY 31. 



In the world we live in and in the universe of which 
it forms a part there are many evidences of a stupendous 
plan, as was long ago demonstrated by philosophical writers. 
The sun is set in the heavens ; the planets revolve in their 
orbits ; the earth turns on its axis ; the seasons come and 
go ; the sea ebbs and flows. The doctrine of evolution may 
to some minds account for physical growth and develop- 
ment, but it fails to account for the existence of a p?aw in 
the creation of the universe. 

A plan logically implies a planner, as has also been 
pointed out by philosophical writers. 

Not only are there evidences of a grand p?an which 
must have had a planner, but there are evidences without 
number of the existence of immutable laius for the gov- 
ernment of the universe. The sun is not only set in the 
heavens but it gives forth heat and light with unfailing 
regularity ; the planets revolve in their orbits, through mill- 
ions and millions of miles of space, with such precision 
that their coming and going and their positions toward one 
another may be calculated with mathematical exactness ; 
the earth not only turns on its axis but it turns so exactly 
that from day to day and from year to year there is 
not the variation of a second of time in its revolutions ; the 
seasons come and go in regular order ; the proud waves of 
the tempestuous seas are stayed by unchanging boundaries. 

We can not conceive of the existence of immutable 
laws without conceding the existence of a law-maker. 

We have, then, in one person or essence, a 2)lanner, or 
creator, and a law-maker. Is it reasonable to suppose that 
the creator of the universe and the maker of the laws 
which govern it should cease to control the work of his 



136 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

own hands ? Certainly not. Therefore he rules ; he is the 
great ruler. 

If the planner of the universe, the maker of its laws, 
and the administrator of these laws be one and the same 
person, or essence, it must necessarily follow that whatever 
he doeth he doeth well. He would not do ill with his own 
handiwork. The planets do not crash into one another, nor 
does the sun fail to give heat and light, or the earth fail 
to produce food for man and beast. He would not do ill 
with his own creatures. Is it conceivable, therefore, that the 
creator and ruler of the universe and the author of our 
existence should punish us after death because we had 
been weak when we should have been strong, or because, 
like Bartimeus of old, we were blind and could not see the- 
way ? Is not our punishment on earth enough ? We suffer 
in the flesh and with mental agony for violations of the 
great creator's laws by ourselves or by those who have 
gone before us, and death itself, the common lot, is a great 
terror, from which we would all escape if we could. 

The inborn hope of immortality, the promises of the 
New Testament, and the precepts and example of the Found- 
er of Christianity, whether he be accepted as the Son of 
God or as the greatest of all the teachers and prophets, are 
incentives to all men to lead upright and useful lives and 
to prove themselves in all things worthy of the divinity 
that is within them. No wise man will undervalue these 
influences ; they have made the human race all that it is- 
to-day. But that the poor creature who was born with 
vicious and criminal instincts, or who became both vicious 
and criminal through the influence of evil surroundings 
which he had not chosen, is to be punished after death is 
a doctrine which rests for acceptance solely upon the the- 
ory that the creator and the ruler of the universe and the 
author of our being is a vindictive God. But vindictive- 
ness is not an attribute of the Almighty, while mercy is. 
Surely infinite mercy can not be less merciful than the 
evenhanded justice of this world, which imposes only penal- 
ties that are commensurate with the offenses against which 
they are directed. Punishment after death, added to the 
punishment of death itself, would bear no just relation to 



A LESSON FROM THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 137 

even the gravest of earthly offenses. Who can sound the 
deepest depths of even a murderer's temptation, or accu- 
rately measure the inherited defects of his physical and 
mental and moral nature ? 

The Ten Commandments contain no hint of either re- 
wards or punishments after death. The punishments of 
the Old Testament are distinctly of this world ; nor does 
the Old Testament anywhere so far as we have observed 
speak of rewards to the righteous after death. In the Fifth 
Commandment we are told to " honor thy father and thy 
mother " — for what reason ? — " that thy days may be long 
upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." 

The doctrine of a future state of rewards and pun- 
ishments can not be inferred from the Old Testament ac- 
counts of the death and burial of the patriarchs, kings, and 
prophets. " Abraham gave up the ghost and died in a good 
old age, an old man, and full of years, and was gathered 
to his people." " And Isaac gave up the ghost and died 
and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days." 
" And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his 
sons he yielded up the ghost and was gathered unto his 
people." " Now the days of David drew nigh that he 
should die, and he charged Solomon, his son, saying I go 
the way of all the earth. So David slept with his fathers." 
In these and other Old Testament accounts the dying ex- 
press no hope of future reward or fear of future punish- 
ment. Indeed they say nothing about a future state. 

In the Lord's Prayer every Christian child is given 
lasting impressions of a Heavenly Father which are loving, 
soothing, and strengthening. " Deliver us from evil " does 
not even hint of punishment after death as an evil from 
which we ask to be delivered. Why should the spirit of 
this prayer ever be departed from by those who teach us 
more of this Heavenly Father than our Saviour himself 
has taught us in its simple words and in many other ex- 
amples and precepts which he has set before us and com- 
mended to our hearts ? 

If it shall be answered that there are passages in the 
Old and the New Testaments, but particularly in the New 
Testament, which are in conflict with the above views 



138 CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS. 

of God's justice and mercy, and which appear to confirm 
the doctrine of future punishment, we ask the reader to 
consider that these passages have been variously interpreted 
by conscientious and scholarly Bible students, and that they 
should be read in connection with other passages which 
clearly set forth God's love for his children and not apart 
from them. Many statements in both the Old and the 
New Testament are now generally discredited by reverent 
Bible critics ; why not also those statements which are not 
in harmony with our conception of the Great Creator as 
our Heavenly Father ? Even the Sermon on the Mount is 
not free from criticism by reverent Bible students. 

We have been led into this train of thought by the 
contemplation of the awful calamity which has just swept 
nearly 2,500 persons from time into eternity, in the twink- 
ling of an eye and without a moment's warning that they 
had reached the end of all earthly things. Shall it be said 
that these innocent victims of man's violation of nature's 
laws must be punished hereafter ? The very thought is 
abhorrent to our sense of infinite justice and mere}'. 

We have also since the flood been impressed by the 
reflection that among ail our acquaintances and in all our 
reading and in all the sermons to which we have listened 
we have never heard of a man or woman of evangelical 
faith who was willing to admit that any of his or her de- 
ceased relatives had been consigned to a state of future pun- 
ishment, no matter how grave their offenses may have been. 
Apparently all men and all women have faith in the ex- 
emption from future punishment of their own friends. The 
human heart will not condemn its own. Are the affectionate 
impulses of the human heart to be ignored ? Is the logic of 
its love for its own to count for nothing ? What else is the 
inborn hope of immortality but a trusting faith in the ex- 
istence of a state of future happiness, adapted, it may be, to 
our individual capacity to enjoy it ? The hope of immor- 
tality, if interpreted in a spirit of Christian charity, implies 
freedom from future punishment for all men, and does not 
embody the selfish belief that a privileged few, as a special 
favor, may escape from its awful infliction upon their own 
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